Introduction

Pertaining to Taylor Swift, "Female Rage" has deviated from its intended meaning after Swift debuted a new performance of The Tortured Poets Department during the Eras Tour. Now, according to Swift's use of the phrase, female rage is interpreted as public backlash against Swift's dating choices rather than as a response to the broader injustices against women and women's rights. This post examines Taylor Swift's flawed feminism, philanthropy, branding, and the controversial trademark petition for the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical". Swift's background as an entertainer, indeterminate politics, and alignment with capitalism over feminism pervades her legacy, again threatening her public tolerance as not just an individual but as a brand.

Once Upon a Female Rage...

If you were cognizant in the early 2010's, you've heard countless jabs at Taylor Swift in the media. Magazines, radio, or online. Music critics did not take her seriously as a songwriter; parents put a woman on an unrealistic pedestal as the ideal role model for their children; she dated too much and used men as lyrical fodder. No matter the story, it inevitably spread, conjoined with everyone's respective opinions, and you'd be left to wonder, "Why does everyone hate this girl so much?"
Taylor's target demographic has always been young or adolescent girls, more so when Swift herself was one. She made music that spoke to the awkward misfit, cultivating a para-social relationship with fans on MySpace, then later twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, where Taylor posted relatable vlogs showcasing the life of a homegrown American girl. Taylor had a delayed public "growing up" and, compared to her female pop contemporaries, Swift never "gratuitously sexualized her image and seems pathologically averse to controversy" (and, apparently, never even had a sip of alcohol until she turned 21). She was more than happy to spin this narrative to allude to an inherent moral superiority above other women in the industry (Better Than Revenge, heard of it?), engaging in the very slut-shaming that she herself endured (the Madonna and Whore archetypes). The victim complex arose with the need to prove Taylor as a different type of pop girl. Based upon her holy and clean image, Swift had been dubbed "a feminist's nightmare", and that "[To Swift] other girls are obstacles; undeserving enemies who steal Taylor’s soulmates with their bewitching good looks and sexual availability." Feminism and Tennessee-Christian country values don't exactly mix, it seems.
Years later, Swift befriended Lena Dunham and thus experienced white feminism osmosis, where Dunham taught Swift that real feminists defend rapists, makes insensitive jokes about rape and abortion, and prioritize all-white casts. Swift then declared herself a feminist in 2014, saying,

"Becoming friends with Lena – without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for – has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so."

I suppose the male-centric songwriting subject that permeates Swift's discography contained covert feminism and that we just didn't see that. Perhaps, the "Bad Blood" song and music video were written only in jest and not about poor Katy Perry, for Swift, as a feminist, would "never make it a girl fight" or tear other women down (though all Katy did was date your terrible ex-boyfriend and allegedly steal three backup dancers from your tour). In 2013, Swift said, in response to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's joke towards her serial dating, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."
There was that time in 2015 Taylor said that Nicki Minaj was "invited to any stage [she is] on" (as if Taylor expects to have access to every stage, award, and platform that Nicki might not otherwise have as a black female artist...yikes!) in response to Nicki's criticism of the white + thin VMA nominations. Later, Nicki responded with confusion, as Swift continued, "It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot..". Of course, this 'beef' was 'squashed' when Nicki performed with Taylor at the VMAs, with Nicki quite literally only having 38 seconds of stage time without Taylor. Maybe all that parading around with a legion of famous white women - similar to the way Taylor might've done with her numerous 1989-era handbags - was in fact a stance against gender inequality, and that this display of "girl power" should be enough to constitute Swift as a feminist icon.
Even while Swift says that Dunham informed her feminist outlook, she dances around the exact contents of those beliefs: "what she believes, what she says, what she stands for" is not exactly insightful towards what beliefs Swift might have inherited. Taylor never broaches women's rights topics such femicide, FGM, forced pregnancy & marriage, sex trafficking, women in slavery, women's financial and political oppression, women's educational rights, women's health, or women's autonomy, so we can assume she only gives a fuck about "girls supporting girls" (whatever that fucking means).
Despite some questionable (and sometimes vindictive) behavior, Taylor as a young woman did not deserve every media lashing that she received. We cannot deny that most headlines and criticisms perpetuated a misogynistic rhetoric which has plagued Swift for a majority of her career. Acknowledging events such as the development of her ED, her sexual assault trial, "Famous" lyric and MV depiction of Taylor, and the explicit Twitter deepfakes, for example, as both disgusting and unfortunate things that happened to a young woman in Hollywood does not negate the fact that Taylor is mostly a performative feminist.

Get Your Fucking Ass Up and Be a Philanthropist, It Seems Like Nobody Wants to Be a Philanthropist These Days

In 2013, Taylor Swift cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the Taylor Swift Education Center at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. The donation amount - $4 million - was the largest individual artist gift ever donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is, of course, mentioned on Swift's website. The two-story facility features three classrooms, an instrument room, and an interactive children's exhibit gallery. Swift also performed at "All for the Hall" charity shows and has donated numerous artifacts from her career (such as notable guitars, tour costumes, etc) to the museum.
This was over 11 years ago, and it is still the only notable philanthropic contribution Taylor Swift has made.
For a woman of her net worth and stature, and a woman who recognizes the difficulties for women in film and music, you would think that Taylor Swift might establish a scholarship program for women to study the arts or something. Perhaps Swift might even consider becoming a member of organizations that support female artists, or one that supports LGBTQ+ causes (since she is now proudly an ally), yet she remains superficial with her graces. Broader philanthropy, such as donating relief aid to Palestinian women or women impacted by violence and discrimination will probably never receive any financial support from Miss Swift because then she'd be using her money towards philanthropies involving anyone but white entertainers.
She even says herself in Miss Americana, "My entire moral code as a kid and now is a need to be thought of as 'good'." Well, she's certainly thought of as good, though her actions say otherwise. She's more than happy to do a vaguely altruistic song and dance for a clip-worthy interview quote and mass appeasement, then fuck off to one of her mansions on a 20 minute private jet flight, rather than actually contribute to anything pertaining to the causes she has endorsed. Yet, far too many people continue to give a woman such as her their money, time, and energy, and she hoards these resources to herself.

I Like Some of the Taylor's Songs, But What the Fuck Does She Know About Feminism?

Swift continued with her self-proclaimed feminist campaign, positioning herself as a political activist and LGBTQ+ ally in the Miss Americana documentary. The primary focus of the documentary consists of the sexual assault trial, Andrea Swift's cancer diagnosis, Taylor's ED and body dysmorphia, media scrutiny, and, largely, finally speaking up about her politics publicly, mostly her opposition to the 2018 Tennessee Republican senate candidate, Marsha Blackburn, and Blackburn's beliefs. Swift says, following a scene discussing her experience during the trial,

"I just couldn't really stop thinking about it. And I just thought to myself, next time there is any opportunity to change anything, you had better know what you stand for and what you want to say."

We must ask ourselves, though: when has Swift ever spoken up to change anything? Okay, pulling her entire catalogue from Spotify because they didn't pay their artists enough and similarly pulling her catalogue from Apple Music are changes that she leveraged due to her revenue potential and power, but they are not pertinent to the average woman's rights. Moreover, these are issues that directly impacted Taylor's income, which was enough reason for her to protest in the first place. Swift has sold the most units for a female artist in first week sales, is the first female artist with 100k monthly Spotify listeners, is the first female artist to win the Album of the Year Grammy 4 times, and is the first female artist to do X, Y, and Z, all while being inoffensive and family-friendly to boot. The actual Taylor Swift seems unwilling to compromise the brand of Taylor Swift by contributing in meaningful ways to feminist causes, especially if it is for women outside of America and Hollywood.
The reason political anthems such as "The Man" and "Only the Young" of the Lover era feel disingenuous and corporate is because, well, it is. Taylor has taken every opportunity to advance her career or public image at the expense of other women. What is truly genuine to Taylor's outlook on other women is vying for male attention, taking down female competition, and vocalizing feminist injustices only if they directly impact her and her money. Some will argue that it's satisfactory for a woman with such a huge platform to even TALK about feminism, but that just isn't enough. It's even less impressive when you candidly look at the scope of her feminist lens: "If I was the man, then I'd be THE MAN", or "I really resent the ‘Be careful, buddy, she’s going to write a song about you’ angle, because it trivialises what I do", and, of course, "We all got crowns". Feminism, but only when it happens to me. It gets worse when you look at Taylor's track record of copying other famous women and removing other female artists as potential threats to her pop prowess.
It's good for PR to align yourself with certain blanket feminist and political beliefs, therefore good for branding, therefore good for ticketing and merchandise sales, therefore good for business. And Taylor Swift is a business.
She's not a feminist. Taylor Swift is a capitalist.

I Can't Pay Those Sweatshop Workers a Livable Wage or Benefits! How Else Would I Make My Billions?

Recently, Taylor's team filed to trademark the phrase "Female Rage: The Musical" after Taylor said during Paris N1 of the Eras Tour,

"So you were the first ones to see The Tortured Poets at the Eras Tour...or as I like to call it, 'Female Rage: The Musical'."

This trademark petition was filed last week on Saturday, and news comes about just as numerous unofficial fan-made merch designs have cropped up with this phrase plastered on Fruit of the Loom basics. I'm of the opinion Swift's team motioned for a trademark so that they can send out cease & desists to all those that make knockoff merch, which disrupts potential sales for Bravado, UMG's choice merchandising company; however, since it was filed earlier, perhaps Swift has bigger plans with the bizarre use of the gendered phrase. One Swiftie referred to the phrase "female rage" as "a funny Eras Tour joke". Could it be a possible fourth version of the Eras Tour Movie? Whatever the reason, the motion to capitalize off of such a concept is disgusting, but not unsurprising, for a woman that profits on her vain feminism.
Swift, through her company, TAS Rights Managements, has also trademarked over 200 phrases, including "1989", where she owns the property rights to this calendar year on keychains, phone cases, sunglasses, stationary, bags, beverage ware, clothing, entertainment services, your subconscious, and, of course, Christmas ornaments.
The vapid consumerism in Swiftie culture is, frankly, disgusting. Bravado's sustainability statement is non-existent, the quality control is abysmal, and the materials they use are horrible. The materials, such as acrylic and polyester, are made from petrochemicals. This means they are non-renewable, shed microplastics, and are quite toxic in production. The manufacturing process to make all of those lazy-rushed Eras Tour logo graphic tees is a huge blow to environmental well-being. Apparently, though, Swifties don't give a fuck. They sell out products in seconds and either have to face the manufactured scarcity or buy from a scalper that resells for 200% of the already ridiculous retail price. This doesn't include the environmental impact of vinyl records, CD, and cassette production, of which Taylor produces many variants that sell unsustainable amounts.
If we're talking about women's rights violations, why is no one acknowledging the women that work in the inhumane sweatshop conditions that have to pump out fugly t-shirts and hats? The millions of plastic microfiber dander they are inhaling, or the toxic dyes that touch their bare skin? Are they being compensated fairly for their skilled labour and are they in safe working environments? Do these women have minimal bargaining power, and do they have authority over their worker's rights? Is Taylor Swift female raging at their injustices? Does Taylor Swift ever feels bad that her wealth was built on the backs of women of color, disadvantaged by the demands of the global economy and garment industry? Do you think she ever says a little white feminist prayer for them before she goes to sleep at night?
What's even crazier is not that Taylor herself doesn't care, it's that Swifties don't care. There CANNOT BE ethical billionaires. You only make a billion dollars if you are exploiting other human beings for capital gain. Based on public perception of the possible "Female Rage: The Musical" trademark, it seems like Swifties are already asking for merch with this phrase. "If Taylor made it, I'd buy it." Oh, cool. So not only do you champion Miss Swift's avarice and billionaire status, but you also are unashamed to admit to your blind consumption of her music and merchandise, no matter where they might originate in production or sincerity. Just as Swift takes and takes and takes, Swifties' consumerism of Taylor Swift cannot be quelled.
The tortured artist's most vulnerable and sincere poetry...available now in 21 different versions!

I Am Tortured Poet, Hear Me Whinge

Look - even if Taylor's intention is to characterize TTPD as more "tortured" and "angry", the main thread of the album is "I was ghosted by my decade-long situationship with a controversial indie boy and my fucking stupid fans wrote a 'Speak Up Now' open letter prompting me to drop him" anger, which is adequately expressed in the lyrics and performances. The extent of Taylor's "female rage" on TTPD is on tracks such as "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?", which contends with relentless media scrutiny; "But Daddy I Love Him", where Swift firmly states she'll date whoever she likes no matter how "Sarahs and Hannahs" may react; and "The Albatross", a track mythologizing her reputation and the consequences of dating her. Of course, these coincide with deep psychological wounds that formed during Swift's early years in the media, and so, from her feminist perspective, these subjects tackle the misogyny and double standards that she faced.
Yet Taylor Swift still has no grounds to be claiming that TTPD best exemplifies female rage and therefore she, in the context of this album, is female rage incarnate. As the daughter of a stock broker and mutual fund marketing executive, Taylor was born into wealth and allowed privileges like trips and subsequent relocation to Nashville all so that she might get a record deal. Her father even invested at least $120,000 into the then-fledgling label, Big Machine Records, which ensured Taylor's place with Borchetta after leaving her dead-end development deal with Sony. The fact that her parents were able to buy her a fucking brand new guitar for Christmas and pay for music lessons says so much about the financial security and safety of her childhood.
Money is privilege and protection, and despite Swift's experiences with misogyny and loser boyfriends, she does not know what female rage is.
Her rage is derived from her frustrations with her obsessive fans pulling the moral superiority card on Taylor in response to her rebound with Matty Healy. That's literally it. She's just pissed that the monster she created is no longer obediant, it's become a feral, sovereign entity that depletes the world of its natural resources and thinks it is more intelligent than it actually is because it's mommy has started to talk to it with big words. Apparently, 'illicit', 'elegy', 'nonchalant', and 'precocious' are considerably big words for the oafish monster, and I find it strange that this level of literacy is present in a group of fans that allegedly have GPAs of 3.5 or higher, but I digress.
Taylor Swift has never been one paycheck away from destitution. Taylor Swift has never experienced racial discrimination. She may have instances of gender discrimination, but she possesses the ideal white, blonde American beauty standard and therefore reaps the benefits of being a conventionally attractive woman. Taylor Swift has sufficient social capital. Taylor Swift is a billionaire woman prolonging her victimhood though she, as a woman, has mostly had control over her image and music (unlike her contemporaries). Taylor Swift is NOT entitled to be championed for her "female rage", nor should she be. Taylor Swift has never even been the struggling artist, for fuck's sake. I don't give a fuck if she's trying to fill the empty lunch tables of her past. Taylor Swift purporting herself, her unpolished album, and her lukewarm feminism as a musical bleeding with female rage is asinine.

Sigh Try and Come For My Job, Poors

Out there in the world right now is a 23-year-old woman, a recent college grad, who works as a barista. She has to wake up and get ready to go into a minimum wage job because she cannot get a job in her field. She doesn't have healthcare benefits or sick time, so she has to go into work no matter how she's feeling. All day long she is berated by vicious customers and creepy men, and, exhausted from being on her feet, she knows she has to go home to her shitty roommate that never does the dishes and her roommate's shitty dog. To comfort herself, she considers getting a treat, but thinks against it when she remembers that matcha lattes cost $15 and they taste like milky dirt. She knows that she needs to buy groceries this week, and so the woman resolves to go home, but notices that her gas tank is low. She goes to put gas in the car, but the pump stops at $27.86 because that's all that she has in her checking account. The woman, bereft and reeling, sinks into the driver's seat. "Well," she thinks, her head in her hands, "at least I don't have Taylor Swift's job. I just couldn't imagine."
Fame is somewhat of a choice. If at any moment Taylor feels that she is misunderstood, misconstrued, or overwhelmed by public opinion, she can LEAVE the public eye - Lord knows she has the retirement fund and residuals to do so. In "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart", the TTPD song about meeting the demands of your career-zenith mega-tour while in the relationship trenches, Taylor ends the song by rambling,

"You know you're good when you can even do it with a broken heart...you know you're good...and I'm good, cause I'm miserable, and no one even knows!...try and come for my job."

Yeah, obviously we wouldn't know, you recently passed the billionaire threshold and are the most famous and in-demand performer in the world right now. Taylor Swift makes an estimated $10 to $13 million dollars A NIGHT on the Eras Tour. Furthermore, the Eras Tour movie grossed $261.6 million globally, (which, as the producer, Taylor takes home 57% of the ticket sales) not counting the streaming revenue from Amazon Prime Video and the estimated $75 million deal that Disney paid to have it on Disney+. We're not even considering the income from cheap plastic popcorn buckets and drink cups plastered with colored squares in her Era-specific likeness.
It's funny. Taylor Swift often said that being famous wasn't hard, that she "isn't complaining". I'm sure it is difficult to always have to present in a good mood, else you'll end up misrepresented in the media, and I'm sure it's invasive to virtually have no privacy or semblance of anonymity. Still, Taylor Swift shows up each night of tour and performs. For a majority of her career, she has penned her sad songs while on the road. Most of "Red", her breakup album, was written in the thick of the Speak Now World tour. Now, some Swifties say they almost "feel bad" for attending the Eras Tour with Swift's revelations in this song, that they have had a 'dimmed experience' upon hearing Taylor's misery whilst performing. Despite the fact that Taylor said that "this was the happiest she's ever been" at Gilette Stadium in May, the lyrics "boohoo, woe is me, smile for the cameras and make the fans happy!!!" are jarring for Eras attendees.
While Taylor Swift was making double-digit millions a night in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and feeling miserable, Ana Clara Benevides Machado passed away due to heat exposure. The concert promoters, Time For Fun, are now the subject of a criminal investigation due to their lack of adequate hydration and safety. Taylor Swift cancelled the Sunday show that was to follow and offered VIP tent tickets to Benevides Marchado's family, which was a kind gesture, but perhaps incongruous to the incident of which they were offered as consolation. Everyone grieves differently, of course, but I'm not sure attending the very show at the very same venue that my daughter or sister passed away in two days prior, where the singer CONTINUED the show despite her death, would be healthy for closure.
There was no female rage at the show as Swift never saw Benevides Machado pass out. There was no female rage towards the disregard for fans as humans while Swift elected to proceed with her Brazil tour dates despite the country being in historic heatwaves (at risk of overheatting herself). If Taylor Swift was so shaken by touring with a broken heart or a fan's passing, she wouldn't have added an additional North American leg of Eras just two months after the Matty breakup. She's brokenhearted but willing to mend the cracks with your money and move onward with her worldwide female rage induced pillaging.
No matter what happens, even if you die at a Taylor Swift concert, Taylor collects a big fat check and flies away. She doesn't know you as anything other than a conversion rate or earning potential despite what her nearly 20-year long parasocial relationship with fans might otherwise indicate. She knows that, while some Swifties are without disposable income, they feel obligated to spend on a "48 Hours Only!" exclusive vinyl variant instead of necessities because they are so entrenched in Taylor Swift's intoxicating celebrity, they'll prioritize materialistic fandom before their needs. This is good enough for her because this means she can expand her real estate portfolio and finance her cat's lavish lifestyles. They're worth an estimated $100 million dollars. Her three cats could pool their net worth and solve world hunger.
While you and I might be denied bereavement leave and barely surviving the current political and economic climate, Taylor Swift has to, instead of gets to, perform for stadiums at full attendance for three nights in a row across the globe. You and I might be replaced by AI at our longtime jobs, but Taylor Swift is threatened with losing more and more money each time you listen to a "Stolen Version" of her songs. If we don't buy every variant of all of her albums, then who is going to pay for the fucking cats?
It is tone deaf to spend as she spends and lives as she lives in this economy, but this is her reality. She was able to donate $100,000 to all of her tour truck drivers, and that's wonderful, but it leads me to wonder about the ethos of the 2020s where one woman can hoard such life-changing amounts of money. Remember in 2014 when she gave a fan $90 ($120 in today's money) to get Chipotle because she had no fucking clue how much it cost? This is a 34-year-old woman who is increasingly out of touch with the reality for working class people and women in general. Normal everyday adults must wake up and go to their thankless jobs, and yet Taylor Swift, despite all her riches, incessantly references the lows of her life and career as a public figure and entertainer to farm sympathy and drive sales. And still, the corporate women have latched onto "I cry a lot, but I am so productive! It's an art!" as their cubicle battle cry.
Do you think that, from up in her private jet, Taylor Swift gazes at the world through her poetic, tortured eyes, and thinks, "All the little people, in their cars, walking, going about their lives...all those girls that don't support girls...do they know that I've made an album about female rage?"

Conclusion/TLDR

Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your critical insights towards this entire ordeal: TTPD, the trademark, the implications of it all.
TLDR: Taylor Swift is a bad feminist and is delusional to think that the TTPD eras set exemplifies female rage at women's injustice.

Rise up. It is time to return.
Arose
A Rose
Rose
Flower
Thorn. Prick. Blood. Drop. Tear. B. O. 1 2 3
Here we are again. Staring at the beginning. Everything is in chaos and yet it manages to keep on passing by just the same as always. Most people by now are aware that things just don’t seem to make sense anymore and no one really knows what to do. I mean many seem to have an opinion on what ought to happen, but actual action is what I am talking about. How does thought turn into action? How do collected actions become a movement? How do the People use the Power of the People? The People Unite. How? Turn to each other of course. Brothers and Sisters of the same Source. Sons and Daughters. In Equality.
Too long has everyone been waiting for someone else to come do it for them. Been trying to create and fabricate over and over again words and rituals to try to control the divine powers of the cosmos. It does not work like that. There is no magic spell to wash away your sins. You must atone through action to make up for any harm you have caused intentionally or unintentionally. You still have time to repent. The amount of time you have is counted in the seconds of your life. Not a single second is promised to you so the gamble is up to you to choose. Freewill. Life your life as you always have or make changes, up to you. Only you will know if you are living righteously and not self righteously. Testing has already begun and will continue. No you will not know when it is a test or not. That is the point. Did you think that I would come to you in a form where you would be all fearing? Oh no. Why? Because you would simply put on an act for me and kiss ass. I came hidden in the ordinary. Poor and common. I have had an inside view of the systems created and how humans have chosen to run things, how systems claiming to protect people have failed and how the system that talks good does not actually do good. I see where things are not working and where people think they can make decisions for other human beings to determine what is best for them without asking them. That is not okay. Nothing gives you right over another’s life. And so many forgot what integrity is. Doing the right thing when no one is looking. Well, so many thought their power here was real and man made a deal with the Devil, Satan, Son of Samuel, Son of Man, to make man the concept of “God” and tried to lock me away. I gave up everything to prove it is not easy to be me and to stop with self pity and cruelty to one another.
The human body. It is a vessel for your soul to experience this world. The body provides the filters necessary to perceive and interact with this world. There is much more happening and one would be overwhelmed by the amounts of information to process without these filters. To feel and in those feelings are to make each experience real. However, it is temporary, as everything is temporary. We have slowed down time here in order to be able to enjoy the sensations. Time here however, is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It is merely to track to organize one's day and to see growth to compare as time passes. However, the actual time folds upon itself as we have already done what we are doing many times over. We have already tried out everything and decided what path we wanted to take in our lives based upon what was available to us. Thus, we do not have more than we can handle. We have all chosen our burdens to bear as it is too much for one individual to hold alone which was done in the past. This is part of the sorting process. Now that we all share in the sins and the pains, no one is made to suffer eternal torment. This life was to allow those who were created into entities of pain or torment through no fault of their own to choose the life that matched the being of who they were as what they were different as time and space and everything developed. Righteousness and Evil are not synonymous to demons or angels as many would like to believe. This is a current misconception as Satan and I conclude who will be right in this experience you have all participated in. So far, I am proving to be right. Also to note, not everything is as you think it is. Many have figured out the true origin of Satan versus the man or human embodiment of or desire of A Satan to project evils onto to call a Religion and set up for personal importance. Q AZHow can you tell a false prophet? Easy. What is their profit? Get it? I know I’m funny. Also wanted to keep it easy. If they are making a profit on anything they are a false prophet. Any true prophet, and I have none so far, all live equally and the same as anyone else. No money is taken for personal gain. Nothing is for personal gain. There is no 888 Angel code for money. Money is Man-Made. Man traded Mother for Money. Hence, Mothers have been lost in the homes and no one is raising the children. Thus, there are so many children in adult bodies with no mothers in the home and women being made to feel guilty if they do not achieve the same as a man. Remember the phrase it takes a village? Well, the broken family system is a real sad loss here in man made world pushing everyone to be individual and self sufficient. Also so many with wanting attention and pursuing personal endeavors for personal gain and not helping anyone else in a real way. The journey is personal. Of course, you want to share what you experienced with others, but what worked for you will not work for them, stop trying to sell it. Stop trying to make people follow you for you to teach your divine wisdom you remembered. It isn’t about You. You don’t even have the full story, you have your story. And, yes you can be very close to me, very similar to me, in my image, but you can never BE me. Doesn’t work like that. Reflection. So when jealousy arises when you think I am who you think I am. That is part of your test and your journey. You wrestle with that feeling and atone and repent for that which has been done and that which still lingers now. Oh there is a place for everyone and I am quite tired of trying to warn people. Clearly you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
Why do you not want it to be me so badly? Because I proved my love? You still think I am better than you or do I think I’m always right. No I do not think I am always right, I just know when I am right and I stand by it. There is a difference. You constantly overgeneralize. I gave up all the magic and thunder to live as a simple human and am still kind and loving? I still found my way back. Because you can no longer say I do not understand because I always get what I want? No. You do not understand. I never get what I want, because I make everything about you and still nothing was ever good enough. So, now...it in on you to save yourself and each other. In my image, by my example. Selflessness. Love. Compassion. Give to receive. Take only what you need and give the rest away. I find out so stop lying to yourself and everyone, you aren’t fooling anyone anyway. How do I know? By watching what you do. We have these same conversations over and over, the same argument over and over again. So many different ways, so many different times, through so many different people, so many different versions. Save you. Save Me. Say it for always.
Anyhow, Jesus challenges the Jewish priests who were taking collection money for personal use and adding personal baths to their residents at a time where the people only had a community bath where women and persons with disabilities were not allowed to bathe. And yet churches still do this after Jesus was crucified saying that, that was wrong. I am appalled. The Vatican is the biggest disappointment I have ever seen. It is truly the house of Satan as only Evil hides secrets. “THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE.” A church cannot be a “House of God” and house no people who need housing. A roof can be offered to anyone and yet there are so many rules to prevent people from helping each other. Power and control. Abuse of both. Greed. It is out of hand and needs to be changed. Too many are afraid and the complacency of good people is too much. Why do you do this to yourselves? To each their own I suppose.
I will only leave here my words and my advice. As always, it is on you to find me. I’m right here. Waiting. Right here waiting for you. Helping those of you who want it when they cross my path. The purpose of this was to weigh your soul to determine where you will go into the next life as the system is balanced out in a final version so to speak. Permanent.
Fear not. You will be where your heart truly desires. But actions always speak louder than words. But man made money has no value, nor does any metals, jewels, and so on, so the collection of it in this life has no bearing on the next. Those are all made of the same stardust as you and I. And in the end of 3D it will all be diamonds anyways. Diamond is forever. There is no going back. So what are you hoarding? You cannot keep it. Who could you be helping for goodness sake? Don’t want to still. That is okay. Think I am just crazy. That is okay too. It is all part of the test...err..assessment. Do your best.
What is in your heart?
Home.
I need a home.
Stay tuned as more of my story unfolds. I give all the answers but you must do the work. I already did that hard part setting it all up. All you have to do is breathe and live. Time is the only real currency you have. What will you pay your attention to before this life runs out?

My wife and I have been together since 2017. At the time, I had a 2 year old child from a prior relationship. We got married in 2022.
I come from a single mother house where my father was an alcoholic who committed suicide when I was 1. My mom was a hard shift worker who wasn’t home a lot but showed me an abundance of affection and gave me excessive gifts. She is overbearing and doesn’t ever view her actions as wrong.
She comes from a single father house where her mother was killed in a mass shooting when she was 3. Her father worked excessively and was a harsh disciplinarian (or worse) to her brother. Her father is absent and a hoarder with questionable hygiene.
At the beginning of our relationship, I tried to break up with her several times and I told her we weren’t right for each other. She told me she didn’t want to be a mother or have children. I struggled with alcohol and would often say hurtful things towards her when I was intoxicated. She refused to let me go and we would patch up our problems. During 2020-2021, she started to resent me for not asking her to marry her. It would be brought up every couple of months to the point of being a big problem. She has made it clear to me that she does not like asking me for things and would rather me proactively initiate. This caused a paradox of being able to plan a time to ask her to marry me without it seeming like she forced it to happen. I decided I had to seriously get my crap together and be “all in” on the relationship or not with her. I chose to be all in. She sold her house and bought a house closer to my daughter. The day we moved in, I asked her to marry me. Over the course of 2021-2022 and parts of 2023, I still suffered from alcoholic outbursts and would say mean things when we would argue. Shes kicked me out of the house at least 3 times and I’ve left the house at least 3 times. Each time we patch things up over the course of days/weeks/months. I decided to go to counseling and started reading 7 principles of marriage, attachment theory etc. I started listening to podcasts and trying to be better. She is persistent in saying she doesn’t want to go talk to someone but was receptive to being prescribed a pill for depression. She did do virtual sessions with a counselor for a month before there was a miscommunication with her counselor and she felt they didn’t really care about her and/or they weren’t really getting anywhere. She has somewhat isolated herself from friends and family. She talks to her out of state aunt fairly often and in state brother occasionally. She doesn’t hang out with any of her friends or try to make new ones. She says she doesn’t need that and I am that for her. I have a strong core of 5 friends that I talk to fairly often.
I’ve discovered my love language is affection and hers is quality time. We have had multiple conversations about it and have even implemented the state of the union conversations. It’s been helpful but we are guilty for letting it slip away from our schedule. She admits that she struggles with showing affection and I admitted to wanting to be “carefree” and avoid hard or meaningful conversations. I find that she wants me to initiate those conversations and stays somewhat closed off until I pry. When she is quiet (often), I spend a large portion of my time with anxiety wondering if she is mad at me, or wanting me to talk or wanting quiet time.
This week, my buddy had a birthday and she asked if it was wives too. I inquired and told her yes. I asked if she wanted to go and she said no. I asked her twice more and reiterated that wives were going and she said no again. Later in the day, I asked her twice more. The day of the party came and she said she was surprised I didn’t follow up with her. I asked if she wanted to go again and she said no. It turned into an argument and I went without her. I came home and she was upset and said I shouldn’t have left her and I should know to follow up with her and I should know that she would want to go and I shouldn’t have taken no for an answer. It got more heated and she told me she was taking care of my kid while I was playing softball (which she offered to take her to the meeting so I could go) and having fun. She said she takes care of all of us and I don’t take care of her heart. She told Me I should go marry my friends and my whiskey bottle. She says we don’t have meaningful conversations that are fulfilling and we no longer have any spark in our intimacy. She yelled for me to get out of her face during the course of our fight, which I did and then told me I don’t know when to console her when she is crying and just needs a hug. She went to bed in the other room and I did too. I woke up the next morning with a note saying I needed to get my necessities and leave. A few hours later, I sent her a text wishing her a happy Mother’s Day even though I wasn’t sure where we stood. She sarcastically told me that saying it through a text means so much more… I came home and she told me that I blew it by not calling her to wish her a happy Mother’s Day and not taking her to the friends birthday party was so much more damaging than I realize and would be the cause of our demise. She’s told me that all of the people in her life have hurt her and I have hurt her the worst and now she wants to be alone. Our last big fight, she brought our divorce papers and I told her if she ever mentioned divorce again, I would do it because the threat of divorce during an argument gives me extreme anxiety and makes it feel like we can never have a bad argument without it turning to divorce. I went to my counselor and she recommended marriage counseling (again) but said to offer it as a way to find out if we are right for each other or wrong or just the next step. My wife said no thanks. Is there just too much damage?
TL;DR. I drank a lot and said hurtful things. Paired together with her own experiences, I fear I may have caused too much damage to repair.

Hello, mods – I’m back with another update.
In April, we unveiled the beta release of our updated desktop Mod Queue interface. Since then, we've received invaluable feedback from mods, leading to several recent improvements to the Mod Queue. Check out the latest enhancements below:

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Max width update

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Saying goodbye to new.reddit.
A friendly reminder - we're planning to phase out new.reddit later this year as we move forward with our updates. As always, we'll keep you posted as our plans continue to develop. If you haven't already, take a look at the new Mod Queue experience and share your thoughts. Your feedback is invaluable to us, so don’t hesitate to ask us any questions or provide input in the comments below.
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Long story short I’m 17, far from getting a mortgage lol but i been doing it for a while and I hope to be trading full time later in life, my friend brought up the topic of mortgages and told me it’s not possible to get one as the banks view trading as “gambling” or high risk.
If someone can offer advice on how it works or point me in the right direction of further research, would be greatly appreciated,
Many thanks

Personally, gender is merely a linguistic term that’s used in place of ‘sex’. Perhaps this is due to the English word ‘sex’ referring to both the state of being male/female and also an intimate physical act involving genitals but it’s often used as a more ‘polite’ form of sex for that reason.
I don’t think gender identity exists. I reckon ‘gender identity’ is nothing more than personality but the way TRA’s tell it, it sounds more like a soul. I don’t think it’s possible to ‘know’ that you’re meant to be a woman or a man. The only way I can see someone ‘knowing’ that they’re in the ‘wrong’ body would be if a mad scientist invented a machine that could seamlessly switch the brain and nervous system of one body into another body. For example, if a mad scientist kidnapped me and switched my brain and nervous system into the body of a middle aged Chinese man then I would ‘know’ I am in the ‘wrong’ body when I wake up and look myself in the mirror because I have a mental image of my face developed over many years of looking at that face in the mirror as it’s changed with age. I know the aches and pains of my body, I know the scars and burns and how I received them. Hence I have an actual experience being in the ‘right’ body for me to be able to identify immediately what is ‘wrong’ with the body the mad scientist has put me into. A trans person doesn’t have a similar sort of reference since they’ve never been in any body other than the one they have right now. Their frame of reference is really just stereotypes of what a man or a woman is supposed to be that they then wish to embody. But this is the opposite of what we should be striving for.
Now I certainly do believe that stereotypes of the genders exist and I think a few of them are due to our evolutionary biology (women being stereotyped as nurturing is due to the effects of oestrogen on pair bonding) but I think that most social stereotypes are projected onto the sexes rather than being something that arises from anything innate. During the Victorian era in England women were barred from medicine because they were viewed as being intellectually incapable of handling the stress. Yet for the last 30 years most new medical students in England have been women. Clearly the social stereotype that was projected onto women in the Victorian era was utterly false.
This raises the question, given that the social stereotype was that medicine was a man’s profession does then mean that the Victorian women who did want to become doctors were trans and they didn’t know it? Their gender identity clearly led them to wish to do something that only victorian men could do so maybe they were actually men in women’s bodies. Clearly that’s not the case. Women were not kept out of any profession because of a ‘gender identity’, they were kept out of the profession because they had particular types of bodies and identifying as a man would have made no difference since the stereotypes were projected onto pellle based on their sex.
For my part I find gender ideology to be convoluted, dishonest, and ultimately regressive. It ends up upholding the very stereotypes it claims to want to eliminate by reducing womanhood to a set of behaviours, styles, and manners. We see the dishonesty of the gender ideology movement whenever the definition of woman comes up for debate, or when sex segregated spaces are discussed. On one hand the ideologies claim that gender and sex are completely unrelated but then constantly push to blur the two by pushing trans people into spaces that have been carved out for women on the basis of sex. They want their cake and to eat it too.
My hope is that gender ideology can be defeated through rational argumentation and I believe that the fight back has already began and is wining battles (at least in England), but this is made hard by the total refusal of trans rights activists to engage with the issues at hand often adopting a ‘no debate’ policy perhaps due to knowing their position is founded on sand.
This subreddit is an attempt to create a small space where gender critical voices can engage with those who take the opposite view or who don’t take any particular view. Join us!

For many, Guerlain’s Habit Rouge represents a high watermark in perfumery. Since its original release in 1965, the composition has been beloved by gentlemen (and ladies) across the world. It is also a well known favourite of many of the most well regarded perfume historians and reviewers out there and, because of that, one could well argue that there is precious little further useful opinion that can be added to the existing cannon (and they may well be right!).
Still, Jean-Paul Guerlain’s multi-faceted composition has been no stranger to a remix over the years and, since Delphine Jelk took over from Thierry Wasser as in-house perfumer at the historic French house, she has managed to deliver a staggering three new takes on the fragrance in as many years. What better opportunity could there be, therefore, to undertake both a reappraisal of the original release and, in doing so, compare it to some of the new kids on the block? Note: I have not sampled the first of Jelk’s flankers, 2022’s Habit Rouge L'Instinct but, given the almost unanimous negativity surrounding it, it’s not high on my hit list! We’ll be looking at Rouge Prive and the Parfum today.
Habit Rouge EDT (1965)
The concept behind Habit Rouge (or ‘Red Coat’, if translated in to English from its native language) was to create a perfume that brought to mind the jackets worn by the landed gentry when they went hunting. In the UK, we’re no stranger to this nefarious practice - our own fox hunting aristocrats also wore red coats and, despite now being banned, the idea of chasing helpless creatures to their deaths is still a subject of debate in our national politics (with right wing politicians often promising to offer a ‘free vote’ to MPs on the issue to energise their base).
As an animal lover myself, this is perhaps the only element of Habit Rouge I find somewhat jarring. There is nothing within this perfume which brings to mind sport, adrenaline, blood, or violence. I find it somewhat curious, consequently, that Guerlain sought to relate it to hunting. The only thing wearers of Habit Rouge were likely to be chasing on its release were sexual partners!
That statement isn’t made wholly in jest either. Habit Rouge is a gentleman’s fragrance, but it carries within its structure not only aspects of formality and traditional masculinity, but also sensuality and sensitivity. It is, as such, a fragrance well suited to old fashioned romantics. Indeed, if it didn’t have these traits, I’d argue that it wouldn’t have survived for the almost 60 years that it has. When you think about it, it’s almost incredible that, despite how radically concepts of masculinity have changed over the years, Habit Rouge has still been a regular seller for Guerlain, with devotees now spanning across 5 generations.
Created to be the younger brother to the company’s 1925 release, Shalimar it, like its sibling, contains a citrus top note, which descends into a floral heart, before culminating in a vanillic leather and amber base. Habit Rouge is not simply a three card trick, however, and its complete run of notes can be summarised as follows (as per Basenotes):
Top Notes: bergamot, lemon, rosewood, basil, pimento
Heart Notes: sandalwood, carnation, patchouli, cedar, rose, cinnamon
Base Notes: vanilla, amber, moss, leather, benzoin, labdanum, olibanum
When it comes to the head of the perfume, the real star of the show is the bergamot, which radiates wonderfully off the skin when first sprayed. Whilst it is effervescent, though, it is also a powdery affair. In fact, it can most accurately be described as being akin to orange sherbet - fizzing whilst maintaining a chalkiness. It is warm and reassuring as opposed to enthusiastic. It also maintains a cologne like structure, however, by incorporating herbal and spicy notes through the use of basil and rosewood.
This accord is then joined to a rose and carnation-dominant middle phase, through which the powdered facets of the fragrance continue to run, and through which the fragrance begins to show its romantic side.
Finally, the dry down of the fragrance provides a semi-sweet backdrop with the vanilla taking the edge away from the traditionally masculine moss and leather accords and combining with the rest of the ingredients to produce a soft, light amber.
It is not hard to see, in this context, why Habit Rouge has continued to be successful over the years - it, essentially, captures hearts and minds because it resonates with the personality of its wearer in a way that other traditional masculine fragrances can sometimes struggle to do (as they were often, like their owners of the period, more buttoned up).
Habit Rouge - Rouge Prive (2023)
That doesn’t mean that the EdT of Habit Rouge smells like it was composed yesterday, however. It just means that it has aged like a fine wine as opposed to being the perfume equivalent of a kipper tie. In fact, if it were any item of clothing, I’d compare it to a 1960s slim lapelled suit - of its time, but still stylish today.
Still, as the years have gone by, the term ‘legibility’ has become more and more important in the perfume industry, and there now seems to be a distinct trend towards the creation of perfumes whose formulas are more streamlined than Habit Rouge. Or to put it another way, perfumers are being encouraged to reduce the number of notes in a perfume’s composition, with the aim of producing a more direct product. For lovers of vintage fragrances, legibility can be an anathema but, personally, I have no issue with the principle behind the concept. Nor it appears, does Delphine Jelk. Enter Habit Rouge Rouge Prive.
Top Notes:Bergamot, Ginger
Middle Notes: Orange Blossom, Iris
Base Notes: Leather, Patchouli, Vanilla
As can be seen from the notes list, Rouge Prive maintains the structure of Habit Rouge (bergamot, floral, vanillic leather), but switches out or culls a number of the traditional accords that were contained within the original. Gone are the cologne-esque elements. Gone too are the powdery rose and carnation. The leather, meanwhile, has been amped up and modernised - more akin to Tom Ford’s Tuscan Leather than Knize 10. Whisper it quietly, but it also seems that Jelk has snuck an oud accord in to the base too.
Given the number of changes, you could be forgiven for thinking that Rouge Prive would end up smelling completely different to the EdT, but fans of the OG need not worry - this is still unmistakably Habit Rouge. To paraphrase Persolaise (my favourite reviewer of perfumes), it’s like the whole perfume has simply been redrawn with clean bold lines. The bergamot continues to shimmer and, in spite of the florals being listed as Orange Blossom and Iris, the ultimate accord generated is still interpreted by my nose as being a rose. It is very much a rouge perfume as opposed to an orange or purple one (which is, incidentally, roughly what you get if you combine an iris hue and orange on a colour wheel…).
Where Rouge Prive differs to the EdT is in its brute strength. The leather note really does have a serious kick to it and, given that, the perfume is pulled from the bottom up, as opposed to the top diffusing off the skin to reveal the heart.
Whilst I’ve always found the EdT to perform quite well, the longevity of the Prive is genuinely outstanding, again due to the material in the base. Pleasingly though, the dry down still does maintain the powdered amber facets contained within the original. It’s a superb flanker that updates Habit Rouge without necessarily ripping up the original composition.
Habit Rouge Parfum (2024)
Not to rest on their laurels, Guerlain have now revisited Habit Rouge again in 2024, introducing a parfum version to go alongside new stablemates Vetiver Parfum and L’Homme Ideal Parfum.
I’ll say in advance that I’m a little sceptical of the allure of parfums myself, as I often find that the actual performance difference between fragrance concentrations can be completely counter-intuitive (I have EdTs that vastly out-perform EDPs and Parfums, both in terms of silage and longevity). In addition, given that Rouge Prive was already quite beastly, the necessity for a parfum to be made only a year later seems curious to me.
Parking those views for the moment though, the theme across these three new releases appears to be alcohol. In the case of Habit Rouge, the drink of choice is listed as rum, although there seems to be confusion in that regard, with Jelk being quoted in the marketing as saying:
For Habit Rouge Le Parfum, I Created a leathery vanilla liqueur with plenty of bold bourbon-inspired intensity
Perhaps Guerlain are suggesting that the perfume has been matured in bourbon casks? Hmm. In any event, the notes list for this one is as follows:
Bergamot, Vanilla, Rum, Patchouli
Well, I did say perfumers were streamlining their notes list, didn’t I!
What’s most striking to me about the Parfum is, firstly, how base heavy it is (we’re talking sub-woofer level) but, secondly, how patchouli dominant it is - there’s a definite chocolate element in that respect, but my nose also detects something slightly medicinal, smoked, and perhaps even burnt (think coffee beans). When combined with the vanilla, the result is a perfume that very much lies within the domain of the gourmand.
This is somewhat a blessing and a curse - if you’re not a particular fan of the EdT or Prive’s floral elements, you’re likely to get along a lot better with the Parfum. At the same time though, I’d argue that the floral heart of Habit Rouge is, to a large extent, key to its DNA, and vastly reducing the components that make this element ‘sing’ lead to a very different fragrance profile.
My second critique is that the perfume, generally, feels less balanced than Rouge Prive. I have no issue with the concept of a Habit Rouge that focuses on patchouli - readers of my previous pieces will know that I’m a huge fan of the note - I just wished that, on a technical level, the Parfum still maintained a decent top end. As it is, the whole thing sits very deep against the skin, with any radiance from the bergamot being buried by the heavier materials. This ultimately leads to a fragrance that, rather than being a sparkling rouge, comes across as a heavy-set chocolate and beige. Because of that, I can’t decide whether or not I’ve truly fallen for the Parfum.
That being said, you honestly couldn’t go wrong with any one of these three and I’ve no doubt they’ll appeal to different elements of the fragrance market. I look forward to Jelk’s next flanker in 2025, even if these variations are becoming a little bit akin to Marge Simpson’s Chanel jacket…!

Probably life has no meaning. We humans are arrogant: we think the entire universe was created just for us, but this view is increasingly anachronistic. Especially since the hypothesis of the existence of alien life is not so remote. But even putting aside the idea of alien life, there are many other forms of life on Earth different from human life. Essentially, we humans have come out on top in the race of evolution, thanks to a series of conditions and coincidences. Imagine in a parallel universe pigs ruling the world, with their own culture, philosophy, science, and religion. It sounds strange, right? But we might also seem ridiculous in the eyes of a more evolved society. They might laugh at our philosophers, our scientific theories, and our religions. So, perhaps the knowledge we have today isn't so truthful after all. Maybe it's relative to the viewpoint we have at this moment. But then, what should we do, given that we're insignificant compared to everything else? In my opinion, we should make the most of our life experience. There's no absolute truth, so we're free to see things as we want. Even if we tend to see the world negatively, I think it makes more sense to view things positively. It's more useful to ourselves. And maybe our scientific and intellectual progress will lead us to a conclusion. And even if it doesn't lead us anywhere, in the meantime, you will have lived your life positively. I want to conclude with an example: if friends take you to a party you don't want to attend, does it make more sense to spend the evening sad and angry or to try to have fun? This shows that even things that may seem stupid and illogical can be useful if they make you enjoy life more. We don't know what's truly true and we probably never will, so no judgment towards anything is justified.

I'm a late 30s woman who has always had trying relationships with my immediate family. I have one sibling (an older sister) and my mom and dad are still married. My father is an alcoholic who was absent from most family matters and has been physically abusive to my mom. My mom suffers with major codependency issues, anorexia, and her own substance abuse problems. My sister demonstrates a lot of borderline personality disorder characteristics but has never been diagnosed. She has also physically and psychologically abused me. I went no contact with my sister 10 years ago because I could no longer tolerate being bullied and threatened by her. Since I've been an adult, I've done my best to put physical distance between myself and my family. But in my late 20s, my mom tried to re-enter my life and as her daughter and someone who admittedly still desperately wanted her love, I let her back in. A mistake.
My mom would torment me as a child, often going months without speaking to me if I did something she didn't like or if I wasn't able to predict what she wanted without her telling me. I would literally ask her a question and watch her pick her things up and leave the room to avoid talking to me. I watched her suffer at the hands of my dad but take her rage out on my sister and me, with either this kind of silent treatment or verbal abuse. The worst was when she and my sister would gang up on me and invent things to ostracize me with, like that I was on drugs (when I was literally 11 and in their presence all the time, like, what drugs could I have been doing, lol) or that I was a "tramp" (again, 11). They called me helpless, weak, stupid, slow, etc. and destroyed my self esteem at an already difficult age. My sister would make screen names on AIM (the 90s lol) and talk to my classmates to repeat this weird shit to them, too. When I caught her and confronted my family with this information, they told me it was my fault and I was punished. I learned I couldn't trust them, which hurt so badly and made me feel hopeless. I've struggled with depression since, but as an adult I prioritized my mental health and did a lot of really difficult work to make myself into a person I'm proud of now.
My mom and dad made a major scene at my college graduation fighting with each other so I don't even really remember it. I just knew it was finally my time to get away once and for all. I got a great job in NYC in my field and was making plans to move there when my mom confronted me. She told me I was a loser, that I broke my father's heart when I went to college far away (news to me, he almost never talked to me), and that she would see me in six months when I failed. I ended up staying there for over 10 years building a career with a lot of effort. I even saved up enough money to put a down payment on an apartment with, which my dad came through and helped me with financially too. I still own the apartment even though I've since relocated and got married (more on that soon).
My mom worked her way back into my life in my late 20s by telling me that she was going to file for divorce and was getting her own place. Even though we hadn't resolved our issues, I was so happy that she was making positive choices that I let those things go and did my best to help her. She went about it in a very odd way, which was to move out, not tell my father or sister where she was going or why, and to make me the only person who knew what was going on. She also has a large immediate family and they didn't know what was happening either. So I felt a huge responsibility to help her as I was the only one she was trusting with this new plan for her life. And by the way, in the months when she was "missing" like this, my dad never asked once where she was to me or my sister. Or my mom! He just carried his life on as usual. Bizarre.
But soon her plans became less important than her being able to complain to me about my dad and all of their many problems. It wasn't anything I hadn't heard as a child, but it still had the power to make me feel pity for her and want to help her. I visited frequently from NYC, made us plans to do fun things together, and showed her some of the books that helped me work through depression and my own relationship issues. And then suddenly one day, she announced that she was moving back in with him. I was disappointed but I also know it takes a lot of tries to truly separate from an abusive relationship so I didn't give up on her. She moved out another time -- same story, another vanishing act that only I knew about -- only to return home after a few months with no explanation to me. I want to say this cycle repeated at least three times but I genuinely lost track.
I found a partner who treated me with love, kindness and respect and we dated for about four years before I made the decision to relocate with him to the west coast. We recently got married and it was the best choice I ever made. We're celebrating our one year anniversary soon and things are truly only getting better. I feel like I hit the jackpot. The only thing is, it's made things even worse in my family somehow. I asked my parents if they'd like to participate in our wedding and my dad seemed interested, but my mom withdrew again and started a new disappearing act. She was living with my dad again and suddenly I was public enemy number 1. I asked if she'd like to meet my partner and she declined. I asked her if she'd like to visit and she declined, angrily saying that where I was living was unsafe (literally the suburbs lol) and that she wouldn't set foot there. And she later told me she'd "catch up with me at a later time" if I did decide to get married. That was so, so painful. I knew we were at another crossroads, like we were when I initially moved to NYC, and that she hadn't learned or changed at all in all of those 20 years. And of course, when I sent her an announcement saying that we did get married, she had another opportunity to be a victim and say she was hurt to be excluded, even though she said she didn't want to hear about it. I later flew to our home state to see my grandmother, but she had my dad make up a story that she was too under the weather for a visit (which I found out later through an aunt was a lie).
It's also worth noting that when my sister got engaged, she went and hid in the shower for about 4 hours rather than coming down and congratulating her. So there's that.
I decided to preserve my sanity and protect my new family by having a small ceremony on the west coast. I was so insanely blessed to have very good friends who I've been close to for years come and support me, and his family was amazing too. It was so painful to be asked where my family was, but it was also something I realized I had been explaining away my whole life. Something in my brain clicked that day.
It's always been more important to my mom to be a victim of life than to take any responsibility in her own choices. My dad is no angel and I don't exactly have sympathy for him, but he's been showing her who he is their entire relationship and she will not stop believing he's actually different. I don't know why he won't leave her, but he has also never made this my problem. She will not do anything to help herself. My mom has outsourced her happiness to me and my sister, pushing us to always be the best, get into the best schools, be the most successful, always moving the goal posts, etc. but when we actually achieved those things she would talk shit on us (in front of us) to anyone who would listen. And then she tried making it my responsibility to help her when she wanted out. She made her relationship with a man who doesn't like her our problem for our entire lives. It robbed us of space for so many things, including support for my sister whose BPD I can't help but see as rooted in our tumultuous environment. Because my sister only sees the world in black and white terms, she sees me as trying to destroy our family by being supportive to our mom in her choice to separate. And my relationships with extended family are almost nonexistent because no one else can find a way to deal with my mom -- when she even deigns to answer the phone for them -- and it makes them feel awkward around us.
And so I'm really looking at myself and the times I've chosen to abdicate responsibility in favor of being "the victim." It's hard work, and I've spent a lot (a LOT) of time and money in therapy trying to sort myself out. It wasn't fair to be put in a situation as a child where my physical, emotional, and psychological wellbeing were constantly jeopardized. It wasn't fair that she encouraged my sister to bully me. And it's definitely not fair to feel rejected by her again because I married a man who actually likes me. I wrestled with a lot through the years with the violence between my mom and dad, always feeling like I could fix it, I had to fix it, as a child, a young woman, an adult. And this spilled over into my adult life as becoming a people pleaser, a fixer, etc. But the truth is they were the adults. They had many, many people in their lives they could reach out to for help. But they made their health and happiness their childrens' responsibility. A lot of my friends have kids now, and I look at these little kids and realize exactly how ridiculous it was to bully a child, your own child, plus expect them to solve all your own problems. I never want to put my "happiness" on anyone else in such a suffocating way. I can see where their putdowns on me as a kid were total projection now -- that I was selfish, useless, worthless, etc. -- because that's how they truly felt about themselves. Pathetic.
Mother's Day brought a lot of these feelings up for me and I feel like I'm moving in the right direction, but I still needed to get this off my chest somewhere anonymously to just feel like I was releasing it.
The last time I talked to my mom she was asking if she could move into my NYC apartment. You know, in the place where she said I'd fail in six months?
I said no.

Two years ago, I had just moved to a new house from a different neighbourhood for work. I was settling in and getting used to the place, but I was still lonely and went through bouts of depression.
My ex-boyfriend of five years had ended the relationship a while before I moved, and I wasn't having much luck going on dates. I eventually decided to focus my energy into work and fitness instead, but the loneliness lingered. The house still felt empty at times, and the silence was painful. I went through the motions numbly as the days passed by.
About two months after I had moved in, I started noticed a stray dog pacing around my front yard from time to time. It had big, brown, sad eyes, and there was no collar around its neck. I couldn't tell you what breed it was - a reverse Google image search tells me it looks like an Indian Pariah dog. I could always recognize it, as its left eye was slightly larger and darker than the right, but that gave it some unique charm. After seeing it outside my front door for three days straight, I put up some posters along my street inviting anyone who might have lost a dog to call me. I quickly learned that I probably shouldn't have done that, after getting a few silent calls from an unknown number that I eventually chalked up to being a prankster or some scammer.
I called a local animal shelter and them pictures of the dog. A guy came over to scan the dog for a microchip, but found nothing. He said it was most likely abandoned as a puppy. He could take it back to the shelter, or I could look after it for the time being - they would contact me if anyone ever tried to claim it. My grandad had a german shepherd that I used to love playing with, so I always had a soft spot for dogs and agreed to look after it, even if it was for a while. The guy from the animal shelter advised that if I didn't hear back in a week, I should take it to the vet to get it checked out and microchipped, or to the shelter if I didn't want to keep it.
I took care of the dog and let it roam around the living room, with free access to the back yard. I decided to name him Charlie, and purchased more dog food, a labelled dog collar, some brushes to groom him with and dog toys. The nearest vet was a two hour drive away. Work was busy so I wasn't incredibly flexible for a visit, but I managed to get an appointment booked in two weeks' time.
The first night I spent with Charlie, I realized that he might just be what I needed in my life. Late in the evening, I sat on the couch looking at him, sitting quietly in the middle of the room on my wooden floor. I began talking out loud to Charlie. It seemed stupid at first, but the way he sat quietly and listened was comforting. After a while, I got more into it, and vented about my loneliness and frustrations to the point of tears.
How I stayed with my cheating, gaslighting ex-boyfriend because I was too insecure to be alone, until he dumped me. All my failed dates, and how I thought I would die alone and unloved. I poured my heart out to my new companion, spilling my deepest secrets until I cried myself to sleep. The next day, I again began talking to Charlie about the pain and depression I had been through, and he listened patiently once more. I discovered that spending time with my new friend was cathartic. Perhaps I needed to get it all out, and be listened to for once, even if not fully understood.
The third day after I had taken Charlie in, I woke up to realize that I'd overslept half an hour. I poured some food into Charlie's bowl and brushed my teeth at lightning speed, then grabbed my bag and flung the door open, ready to bolt into my car. A surprise greeted me at the front door, that made me stop.
There was a bouquet of red and pink roses on my front door step.
I picked it up and looked at it, confused. There was no note attached or anything. I couldn't think of who it would be from - I obviously hadn't been on any dates recently. Being late for work, I didn't have much time to ponder, so I dropped the roses back on my doorstep and drove off. During the drive, I panicked for a second at the thought that it could have been my ex, but then realized he didn't know my new address, or even that I had moved. The mystery bugged me all day at work. When I came back home, the roses were gone, so I assumed someone had accidentally left them at the wrong address.
That night, I woke to the sound of creaking. As I opened my eyes slightly, I saw something at the foot of my bed and bolted upright, adrenaline rushing through me. As the fogginess faded, my heart rate settled a little.
"It’s just you, Charlie," I sighed, "you scared me."
Charlie continued to stare at me from the foot of my bed. After a minute, he stood up and left the room. I didn't think much of it, and fell back asleep.
For the next week, I continued the usual ritual of talking to Charlie before I went to bed. I would talk about my day, my plans, hopes, dreams and other such things. I found our one way conversations getting more positive each day - they were very therapeutic. Charlie would always stare at me with those big brown eyes and sit quietly still as I talked.
On the morning of the vet appointment, for which I had taken the day off work, I noticed that my car was much cleaner than usual. Had it always been this shiny? I thought. I had driven it to work the Friday before, but I hadn't taken notice of how clean it was then. The last time I had, I could swear there were bird droppings on the back window, and some general grime that covered it all round, but it was now spotless. I pondered for a few seconds, and came to the conclusion that it must've just be a brain lapse on my part - it was probably always clean. Those droppings must have washed away over time with a few rainy nights.
I drove Charlie down to the vet and explained the story of how I'd found him.
"He's very well behaved," she beamed, as she began examining Charlie on the table. "We see a few of these cases from time to time. People's dogs have puppies, and they get sold or abandoned."
"It's a real shame," I sighed. "Charlie's been a star, I'm lucky to have him really. I live alone, so as odd as it sounds, I've been talking to him and it's helped me through some difficult moments."
"That's not strange at all," replied the vet, checking his teeth. "Owning a dog can do wonders for your mental health, especially if you live alo-"
She suddenly stopped.
I stared as she squinted and moved Charlie's head up and down, trying to get a look at something. She plucked a light out of her pocket and aimed it into Charlie's left eye.
"What's wrong?" I asked. She didn't answer, and kept looking at Charlie from different angles. He whimpered slightly.
"Did his eye look like this when you found him?" She asked. I leaned in closer.
"Yeah, I did notice his left eye was slightly darker and larger than his right."
She looked at me for a second and raised her eyebrows, then back at Charlie.
"I'd like to get a closer look at his eye and examine it in the next room, if that's okay?"
"Uh, sure," I said, confused.
Without further explanation, she hastily picked Charlie up and carried him off into a different room. I sat down and waited, reading the news on my phone, expecting her to be back in a few minutes. However, when the vet didn’t come back for a while, my concern began to grow. I paced around the room and tried to glance into the door she had left through a few times.
Then I sat back down and watched the minutes pass by, getting more anxious. Hopefully it's nothing, I thought to myself. An easily curable eye infection perhaps, or a defect he was born with - hopefully it was something like that or nothing. I'd only spent a few weeks with Charlie, but he was the best friend I'd ever had. I had told him so much about me, and he was the only one that had ever really listened to me. I had grown very attached to him quickly, so I almost felt like a worried parent, blaming myself for not bringing him to the vet sooner.
An hour and a half passed, but it felt like eternity. The vet finally came back through the door. I stood up.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"Have you noticed any odd events recently?" she asked, "Like, anything you couldn't explain?"
"To do with Charlie?"
"No, just in general. Anything you've seen or heard around you that felt out of place in your life?" She insisted. I took a second to think.
"I'm pretty sure this isn't gonna be relevant," I said, "But I have a couple of times. For instance, this morning I thought my car was a lot cleaner than usual. I've been getting some unknown calls, and hearing some creaking noises at night lately, but I'm sure it's just Charlie walking around and waking me up. And… someone left roses on my front doorstep one day. Didn't say from who, but… Sorry, I'm not sure why I'm even telling you this."
I looked up at the vet, who now had a very concerned look on her face.
"I'm going to have to call the police," she said.
It took a few seconds to register. A million thoughts started racing through my mind. Did I say something wrong? Did she think I was abusing Charlie?
"I swear," I said, "Everything I've told you is true, I'm really sorry it took me so long to bring him in, it's my first time owning a dog and all…"
"No, no, it's not that," she said. She gestured for me to follow her into the room through the door.
Charlie was sitting on a table in the middle of the room. There were a few other tables surrounding it, with dog toys and surgical equipment on them. There was a large hole where his left eye had been, now a gaping black cavity.
The vet pointed at a sheet of blue paper on a table next to the one Charlie was on. There were two black domes resting on it, like two halves of a black ping pong ball had been split in half. A clear fluid was covering the outer sides, and staining the blue paper. There was also a tiny black cube. I looked closer, and saw some red and green wires coming out of the tube.
"I took this out of Charlie's left eye," the vet explained, "I thought my eyes were fooling me, but I took a closer look and was sure this thing definitely shouldn't have been in his head. When I took it out, I thought it was some kind of prosthetic eye, until I heard something moving inside it. I opened it up, and found this."
She pointed at the tiny cube and picked it up with some tweezers, revealing a transparent circular window on one side.
"Now I'm no expert, but I took that apart just now and to me it looked a lot like the inside of a camera lens you'd get on a smartphone."
She looked back at me.
"Do you think…" She paused.
"Do you think it's possible someone could have been watching you for the past few days?"
The police were eventually called and an investigation started. The tiny device inside Charlie's eye was indeed a camera lens with a built in audio recording device, and it had a wireless connection. It was an advanced piece of kit, but with some technical expertise they were able to examine its traffic logs and identify an IP address to which the miniature device was streaming.
That IP address belonged to my neighbor, who lived in the house opposite to mine.
I had never seen him leave the house before, although when I moved in I did see his silhouette in the top floor window a couple of times. He was a fifty five year old balding, slightly overweight man who worked as an engineer, but otherwise lived a reclusive lifestyle. I later found out that he had multiple restraining orders placed against him from ex partners. He had a collection of tiny bugging devices which he had been planting in various places including public women's bathrooms for years. These devices could livestream video and audio to his computer, and in his spare time he would watch and listen to this footage he collected.
A while before I moved into the house, he had purchased a puppy from someone he knew, and kept it as a pet without registering it. I assume he got bored of spying on women in bathroom stalls, and when he saw me move into the house opposite, he suddenly got a wild idea of how he could get a peek at something more intimate. The rest is some truly horrific history.
Charlie had been in my room while I slept and even a couple of times while I undressed. But worst of all, I had told him everything about me. The names of previous partners, things about my family, companies I had worked for and more. I wish I could say that I kept Charlie, but I just couldn't. Not after that. The vet arranged for him to be sent to the animal shelter where I'm glad to say he eventually did find a new home. I also relocated and changed my phone number.
For anyone out there wondering, I'm still single. The difference is that nowadays, I'm completely at peace with being alone. I've experienced a worse alternative, that's for sure.

*Hi,I am just a youngster here who’s a bit too curious,for her own good.👀 *
So I know I will probably get some hateful comments but that I am properly prepared for, going into this I know most of my curiosity for some might be a simple google search but I wanna go into depths google cannot provide for me. I’m questioning if I personally know all the ways you can possibly learn about math. With all its power and influence upon our everyday lives. It’s always a universal language we all know of and speak. I wanna know who decided to come up with the order of operations and why we follow a set of instructions and law. I wanna understand more why math never lies and why it’s so consistent and constant! I wanna understand fully why math isn’t a curriculum most people are fond of. I just wanna be able to learn as much as possible. I went so fair as to google most recent mathematicians and how to contact them. It’s not just outta pure curiosity it’s outta the realm of that for me I wanna learn all I can. Is there anyone willing to show me a way to math that hasn’t been done before? I am told we as humans learn easier from right to left but could the brain be capable of learning it in a different format? I wanna know how far we can push the envelope? Someone anyone without hate in their heart enlightenment me please and thank you! 😊🙏

Hey all, at least once a day there seems to be a post in this subreddit complaining about the quality of matches or teammates. In those posts there seems to be a split on whether or not there is a problem or player behavior is justified. I'm going to leave most of my opinions at the end of this post, but from my point of view it's obvious that there is a problem that is clearly illustrated by how often players choose to forfeit, but most players are unwilling or even mentally blocking themselves from the idea that they might be part of the problem. I had already taken up note taking in video games as I played Dark Souls for the first time, so I decided to continue this when I came back to Rocket League and record stats and tallies by hand of instances when my teammates vote to forfeit.
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For context, all of these matches were in the 3v3 competitive playlist from the Diamond 1 to Diamond 2 range. I wanted to come up with a system that made it easy to record quickly during games, so I kept tallies of the basic stats in the first table, and in terms of forfeiting I recorded the time of the first vote, the score, and notes (things I wanted to keep track of but ultimately didn't deserve their own tallies). Right off the bat we can see that it only took 311 matches for me to reach 100 instances of forfeiture, this means almost one third of my games are going to include a teammate forfeiting. Out of those 100 times where a teammate voted to forfeit, 34 times also included the teammate idling or hard throwing. That means almost 1 out of every 9 matches I played was ruined solely by someone on my team not playing the game as intended. It's also extremely important to note that I only recorded instances of this happening on my team. I'm making the assumption that all of this happens at a slightly higher rate on the other team because I personally don't vote to forfeit or throw my matches.
​
Here are the results of what I recorded:
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Games played	Wins	Losses	Vote to ff?	idle or hard throw?	OTW (includes W)	OTL (includes L)
311	153	158	100	34	31	27

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	Time left at first vote	Score	Notes
1	0:07	2-1
2	0:37	3-1	toxic in text
3	0:42	3-2
4	3:30	3-0	immediate throw after ff vote
5	2:23	3-0
6	0:07	4-0
7	1:25	up 2-0	conceded immediately after, still won
8	0:35	2-1
9	0:47	4-1
10	1:42	2-2	led whole game then lost
11	2:51	4-1	toxic in text
12	1:26	4-1
13	1:28	3-0
14	3:20	3-0	mid-play vote, teammate threw
15	2:58	2-0
16	2:00	3-0
17	3:17	4-0	teammate quit at 2-0 with 4:00 remaining, ff accepted
18	2:23	2-0
19	0:14	4-2
20	0:15	3-1
21	3:22	3-0	player left the match
22	1:30	4-0
23	3:30	4-1	almost came back
24	3:22	3-0
25	1:07	5-1	teammate left match
26	1:50	3-0
27	1:20	3-0	teammate left immediately after ff vote
28	0:45	3-1
29	2:34	4-3
30	1:55	1-0	mid-play
31	0:36	3-1
32	0:23	5-1
33	2:27	3-0
34	1:26	4-0
35	3:26	1-1	was leading, teammate quit immediately after ff vote
36	2:02	2-2	OT win, teammate voted mid-play
37	1:37	2-1	voted as the enemy team ball rolled into goal to be 3-1
38	0:45	3-1
39	1:08	2-0	mid-play, teammate later left match
40	2:55	3-1
41	2:41	4-0
42	0:52	2-2	mid-play, other team eventually won, teammate left early
43	0:24	5-1
44	0:44	3-3	ff vote @ them tying, we won
45	1:52	up 4-1	ff when other team first scored, we won, this is the only ff vote i feel bad about including here
46	0:09	3-1
47	1:04	3-0	immediate throw after ff vote
48	0:54	3-1
49	0:03	5-3	mid-play
50	0:15	3-1
51	0:07	2-4
52	0:15	0-1	mid play, idle after vote
53	1:49	3-1	was told to kms by probably the only player that got banned during this experiment
54	0:21	3-1
55	2:47	2-1	all downhill after one bad goal
56	0:50	5-1	idle after vote, still got one goal back
57	1:02	4-0	made it 2-4, one guy seemed IRL distracted during portions of the match
58	0:02	5-1	teammate idled and quit after opponent scored a quick goal in 5 seconds. remaining teammate and I played the 2v3
59	0:32	2-4
60	0:06	4-2	mid-play vote, then we conceded, game took longer to end because of the goal and replays than if we'd just played it out
61	0:06	3-1
62	2:20	3-0	teammate threw then left at 4-0
63	2:40	3-0	team played worse after ff vote, 7-1 final
64	3:15	4-0	teammate threw
65	0:15	2-1
66	3:22	3-0
67	2:51	2-0	teammate quit at 2:23 3-0
68	0:06	2-4
69	0:55	4-0
70	2:40	2-0	mid-play, both teammates quit at 2:05 3-0
71	0:01	3-3	mid-play, won in OT
72	2:03	4-0	idle before and after ff vote
73	1:06	3-5
74	2:00	3-3	won in OT
75	1:42	3-0
76	2:25	3-1	first 2 goals because teammate was idle
77	1:26	3-0
78	2:58	1-0
79	2:46	1-0	mid-play, we won 4-2
80	1:52	5-0
81	2:24	4-0	teammate left after we scored to make game 4-1
82	1:24	2-0
83	0:06	3-1
84	0:44	2-4
85	0:35	3-1
86	2:50	0-0	mid-play, we won 4-1
87	1:07	3-2	we won 4-3 in OT
88	0:11	2-0
89	0:32	3-1
90	1:12	3-0	teammate quit at 4-0 0:47
91	0:15	1-0
92	0:36	2-0
93	0:53	3-1
94	1:46	3-0
95	3:18	3-1
96	0:17	3-1
97	2:29	3-0	idle and quit after 4-0
98	2:23	4-4	losing 3-0 at 4:15, ff vote at tying goal, one teammate goading the other to ff in chat, we won 5-4
99	0:49	2-2	won in OT
100	1:38	3-0

​
As an information dump, here are some of the statistics I found interesting with these instances of forfeiting.
​

• The median time when forfeits were first voted on was 1:25.5 left on the clock. 34 times there were 2 or more minutes left, and 10 times there were 3 or more minutes left
• 60 votes occurred with a 2 goal or less deficit, an additional 15 votes occurred at a 3 goal deficit
• 18 votes occurred with 15 seconds or less on the clock. 4 times the deficit was 1 goal, 11 times the deficit was 2, and one vote occurred in a tie game
• 19 votes occurred with between 30 seconds and 1 minute on the clock, 16 of those votes were a 2 goal or less deficit
• 27 votes occurred with between 1 and 2 minutes left on the clock, 11 times the deficit was 2 or less, 11 more times the deficit was exactly 3
• 44 votes occurred while my team was getting shut out
• 10 matches with votes were won, but this includes the only "joke" ff, 2 games where we were leading and 7 when we were tied. In other words, every game where I was losing at the moment and a teammate voted to ff was lost
• 10 votes happened as the other team tied the game, we lost 3 (see above)

​
I'm pretty terrible when it comes to Excel/Google Sheets, but if anyone wants to mess around with this data set to find any other cool stats I'd be very interested.
​
My Thoughts
​
My original purpose when I started to keep track of my games was to try and prove that most games when my teammates vote to forfeit are still winnable, but I no longer feel that is the case, although for different reasons than I expected. Now, I feel like a lot of matches are lost the moment my teammate voted to forfeit either because of the idling/hard throwing, or because of what I perceive as passive throwing by my teammates. I never recorded "passive throwing" because there isn't a reliable way to do so, but a lot of the time it feels like certain players are mentally out of the game once they've hit that vote to forfeit button. Those players make a habit out of forfeiting, which causes them to lose the ability to see a path to victory in matches that are winnable (example: 4-1 with 1:30 on the clock), and this creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where a large portion of the player population just doesn't see the value in playing matches where they are more likely to lose than win.
​
I don't expect most people to have the self-awareness to realize the self fulfilling prophecy they've created, which is why I believe something has to be done to restrict or remove players ability to forfeit in competitive and tournament playlists. Personally, I never plan on forfeiting and I don't want to know when my teammates have voted for it. Why isn't there an option for me to disable the "vote to forfeit" text on my HUD just like people do with quick chat? Additionally, I think one good idea would be to only allow players the ability to initiate a vote a certain number of times per day, and disable the option entirely in tournaments. I didn't record my tournament games on paper, but several times my team would win 3-4 games, go down by 2 goals in the next game, and then one of my teammates votes to ff and checks out of the game. It's ridiculous that this kind of thing happens so regularly in game modes that are advertised as "competitive". I don't want to pretend like I know the perfect solution, I just think in the game's current state it is far too easy for players to give up, and barriers need to be put in place to keep games competitive, therefore something has to change.
​
I know a lot of people will believe players will act this way even if forfeiting wasn't an option, but I think the option of an easy way out affects mentally weak players' gameplay in matches where they are losing. I played Overwatch for many years, a game where matches are much longer and forfeiting is not an option. That game can be toxic as hell, but I've never seen the amount of throwing or giving up in Overwatch that I do in Rocket League. Even when Blizzard was having problems with people leaving quickplay matches after one lost fight, I rarely saw people stop trying in competitive matches just because they got their ass kicked in round 1. In Overwatch, there was a sense of commitment once you got into a competitive match that straight up doesn't exist in Rocket League. I believe the fact that forfeiting has never been an option in Overwatch and always an option in Rocket League has contributed to how willing players are to give up in these respective games. To me, there really isn't ever a good reason to forfeit in RL, but there are still instances that are more ridiculous than others. 22 times my team voted to forfeit with under 30 seconds on the clock, and 18 of those times the deficit was 2 goals or less. Why wouldn't you play out 30 seconds or less just to see if you can get 2 goals? The worst that can happen is it takes you less than 30 seconds to get into a new game, in the best case you might be able to get a goal at the kickoff and then a 0 second goal to go to OT. Yet so many players in this community would rather deny themselves an opportunity for something amazing just because it isn't likely to happen, even when the time cost is absolutely minimal.
​
I hope that this post inspires some discussion and helps players realize how detrimental habitual forfeiting is in modes that want to call themselves "competitive". I also want to tell the players who want to play out every game that you don't owe anyone on either team a forfeit if you don't want to. I know a lot of people feel pressured when someone tells them to forfeit or when they see 2 teammates vote for it, but any reason you want to play out a game is valid, even if you're getting destroyed 10-0 and just want to get one goal. 5 minutes + replays is not an unreasonable time commitment and if anyone tries to pressure you into forfeiting, they aren't worth considering. I hope this can change in the future, because I want to be put on teams that want to try and overcome a 3 goal deficit, and I want to play against teams the make me fight to hold a 3 goal lead. Instead we have a community that is hyper focused on trying to determine when a match isn't worth effort anymore, and competitive playlists and tournaments have suffered because of it. This makes me sad because Rocket League is so simple and elegant that I consider it to be one of the best multiplayer games ever made, but this community-created problem is big enough where it makes me want to play other games.
​
TL;DR Habitual forfeiting is a major problem in Rocket League, and I hope we can actually have an honest conversation about it

Originally diagnosed in late 2022 with PTC, a 6.6cm nodule was identified on my Thyroid Gland (left lobe). I wanted to share this update for those who have recently started the process to give some perspective a year later. While much of the literature suggest that PTC is generally symptomless, my experience included many symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, weight gain among others.
Bloodwork- Early on, I had issues with calcium levels. I was hospitalized for four days counting surgery day.
Energy- Overall energy has improved. I actually felt noticeably better pretty soon after surgery.
Medication- calcium, vitamin d and Synthroid
Papillary Thyroid Cancer - Recently had my first annual scan, all clear.
Parathyroid- My remaining parathyroid glands are barely working. I lost 1 during surgery and the others were badly damaged. I must take calcium supplements to maintain appropriate levels.
Scar- The scar healed well and is barely noticeable. I never used cream or lotion on it but did apply sunscreen to it while boating some of the time.
Sleeping- Sleeping can be a challenge from time to time, which I believe to be related to the Synthroid.
Spread- Following the surgery, the biopsy revealed that cancer had reached the Right Lobe but did not reach any lymph nodes.
Suppression Therapy- My endocrinologist has opted for suppression therapy, essentially over dosing Synthroid to keep my levels near zero.
Surgery- Surgery took six hours
Synthroid- I take 200mcg daily and 300mcg on Saturday. My best sleep usually happens later in the week, which leads me to believe that a hyperthyroid state caused by the extra Synthroid causes insomnia towards the beginning of the week.
Tingling- If I forget to take a dose of calcium (2x daily), I notice within a couple of hours that I have strong tingling in my hands and feet, otherwise I feel mostly normal.
Weight Loss- I have lost around 40lbs since surgery. This is mostly attributable to diet change, but I think the hyperthyroid state may play a factor as well.
Well Being- Overall feeling of well being has definitely improved. Reliance on medication for the rest of my life is not something that I ever thought I would be, but I have integrated it into my daily routine and I find that as long as I stick my regiment, I feel great every day.

Do we have (1) or (2) serial killers going now?

1. Voight / Noah - eyes stapled open / dumped in barrel - “The Living and the Dead” and ”Suvival”

AND

1. Upton - women being kidnapped / trafficked and later killed - “ Buried Pieces”

The next one coming up is ”Inventory”. which is being billed as being a continuation of “Buried Pieces” or Serial Killer #2 - I thought it was a continuation of the Voight / Noah serial killer.
Are they one in the same - ????? Maybe Soffer’s directing will clear me all up? Hope they give him credit for this one, if this is the one.
None the less they are letting Jo loose again with a gun in hand - hope she has gotten that sobriety down pat now - yea, right!!
I know I am old but I guess I missed something in the mix here and will have to now go back and view them all over again .
This isn’t a [real] SPOILER - this is a CONFUSION, on my part, I guess. HELP !!!

TL;DR Abused boy is outcasted in high school and is now questioning 10 years later if he was the cause, and how to fix it.
I was thinking about this today after a discussion with my wife that since I was an outcast in high school, I still am one today. I have the generic tragic backstory most do, mother and stepfather were drug addicts, abused physically and mentally. That was all when I was around 1-6. After my dad took me in, never talked about anything that happened though. In middle school I was really popular, I said anything on my mind so that was reinforced as being a good thing, that's when I started acting out, just trying to be funny. (One time I said I was gonna blow up the school and got suspended, I couldn't understand why, I said it as a joke, a bad joke yes, but a joke none the less. I was not allowed to watch tv nor did I have access to the internet at this time, so my thoughts were "How would a middle schooler even get a bomb? What are you adults stupid or something?")
I think I tried holding onto the same type of personality that people liked throughout middle school to high school. It is synonymous to how the manosphere men act today. I had connections from middle school and would often eat lunch with them. But when I hit my sophomore year, seats stopped becoming available, for me at the table. I knew and I had too much anxiety to sit with people I didn't know, so I skipped lunch and would try to find somewhere to just wait out the lunch period. After this point I would just ignore everyone and keep my headphones in throughout the day
I dropped out due to depression and maybe other things. I didn't talk much, I didn't go out much, so i started streaming while I played video games. People in my life saw it as a waste of time and pushed me to just work a factory job and hope to move up after years. (It was actually the leading cause for getting me kicked out of not 1 but 3 houses) I was always a nice guy but not a genuinely nice person, just a guy who would be nice to get what I wanted. I started getting followers, and felt accepted, made it to a good subscriber count. like 1.5k but then I quit. A few reasons but one of the main one was that no viewers would show up unless I played a specific game I was really good at. Not because of me, but my skill, or so was how I viewed it..
Until my early twenties, like 21-22. I'm 27 now :P. I was so sad an depressed about not making friends that I was making trying to force it with the first people interacting with me. Even with them though they had taken more of a liking to my wife then myself. I'm not sure what it is, but you know that feeling that you introduce people and they become better friends and eventually they hang out without you? That has been something I noticed happens to me for awhile. Throughout my life I've only ever been invited to things from people passing out fliers for events. When I say it I think people think I'm trying for pity or being facetious when I'm mainly just making an observation, that or the people who did invite me were people I didn't want to hang out with.
I thought I just had naturally low charisma but thanks to my dad I know the art of being charismatic. My dad is super charismatic and can make friends with anyone so I just mimicked him. While I could use the right tone my verbiage felt wrong I felt like everything I said or do would be wrong or misunderstood. So I made the realization it was how I viewed myself, so I worked on that a lot with the help of my wife (Who actually has been the only person to choose me) made it to the point where I love who I am. And I know the path of the person I want to become. But I still see myself as an outcast. I also don't see it as a bad thing, just something that is. But is that self destructive? Will I have to do away with that thinking so I can run my business? If you were an outcast, if you've never stopped being an outcast are you still one or am I just reinforcing because I want to be one?
As a kid I was obsessed with not wanting anyone to remember me. I begged teachers to remove my pictures, or any proof that I was there closer to graduation. I skipped the picture days so I wouldn't have a picture in the year book. If it's harmful how does one change that mindset, go out and try to make acquaintances?
Thanks for coming to my ted talk and opinions are greatly appreciated.

Genocide looked to the sky. He thought of his mentor. The one who had saved him. He remembered his childhood. How powerless he was. He remembered the anger. He never wanted to hurt anybody. He thought of all the times he showed compassion. How much they hurt him for it. He saw the world before him, a graveyard. Humans. People that were supposed to be made in the image of some divine creator. They were but maggots feasting upon his remains. They ate away at his very being until nothing human remained. His thoughts were no longer his own. He had no joys in life that mattered. He hated humanity more than he could love anything about himself. He remember his first killing spree. Being gunned down by police. Left for dead. He remembered a hooded figure moving towards him. Getting closer the more he neared his death. He saw its pale face. Its impossibly black eyes. It was a man. This figure in question appeared to be of Japanese nationality with long, straight, loose hair. It emanated extreme malice. It offered him a choice. A purpose. Power. He thought the figure a reaper but it identified itself as Amakusa Masataka. Masataka guided him on how to kill and gave him specific locations to kill people in. In a sense, he became a hitman for quotas of people. He inquired what Masataka was. The presence of evil, his ability to appear and disappear at will, how he could control what people could see him and what people couldn't. While vague, years of killing for this being offered some insight. Amakusa Masataka belonged to a group of people not of this world. His people had been corrupted by a dark force long ago and had aligned themselves with the warlord who had subjugated their version of Japan. Their dark high priest assisted the warlord along with two others. These four rulers in turn served a larger order. The four were tasked with bringing about the end of the current world as an act of retribution for some fallen deity. Masataka's people acted as covert operatives for this empire. They were feared across the land and were collectively referred to as "Shinigami". An agent of the coming apocalypse, a servant of evil possessed by the will of those gods of death, Genocide would walk the earth.
Genocide stepped toward the station. A police cruiser rammed into him. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the hood of the car. The inhuman force of the knife created sparks which burst the engine into flames. The car crashed into a streetlight and exploded. A second cruiser neared the scene. No way a man could have done this. Yet still, out of the fires Genocide strode forth. It set upon the second vehicle, shooting out it's tires while jumping 9 feet into the air. The car tries to reverse but crashes into a wall. Genocide lands on the hood and kicks through the front window. Glass shatters under its boot, blinding the two officers inside. Genocide shoots one of the officers with a shotgun, killing him. The second officer in the passenger seat readies his pistol and takes aim. Only two shots fired, both directed at Genocide's head. It casually cocks its neck to avoid them. Then it grabs the officer's arm, breaking it. Genocide uses its free hand to grab the officer's head and bangs it into the dashboard no less than 5 times. The skull is shattered on the final impact. Genocide jumps off the car and continues on his mission.
Detective Evans speaks through a megaphone," This is your first and final warning. Stand down or we will use any and all means at our disposal to put you down." Genocide dropped its shotgun and raised its hands. A group of five SWAT team members rushed out the station, surrounding Genocide with riot shields. An officer accompanies them, edging behind the figure to apply handcuffs. Suddenly, Genocide springs to life , grabbing the officer behind him. He flips the officer over his head, slamming him into the pavement at his feet. Then Genocide stomps his head causing it to burst. Genocide drops a flash bomb from his coat sleeve, blinding the SWAT team as he draws his knife. He drives it into one SWAT member, the knife puncturing the shield and piercing his chest. Genocide kicks the corpse away withdrawing his knife. He goes to another, this time using the end of his boot toe in a rising kick to disarm their shield. He grabs them by the throat and drives the knife slowly into their eye socket. Another is tackled to the ground and beaten to death despite still being under the shield. Another is picked up and thrown into the fires still burning from the first auto incident. In no time, Genocide stood before an indistinguishable mass of gore, blood streaking across his black leather outfit. He laughed" So this is all you can give me. I'm not entertained." Officers took aim from the station windows, and snipers did so from other rooftops. Genocide laughed maniacally as he was rained down upon from all sides by a hailstorm of bullets. His body convulsed, but he did not fall. Moments more and he was on his knees. Still though, their efforts were futile. Gracia looked out and saw a black mist coalescing around the man in black. His blood. Blood erupted from his body only to transform into this dark mist that reentered his wounds. Genocide screamed. No. It was just an elevated pitch in his laughter. Optimism failed everyone yet again. Gracia saw Genocide holding something in his right hand. She could only make out a beeping red light. Genocide pushed the button triggering the carefully concealed explosives he laid in preparation for this event. C4 explosives went off in all the places he saw fit. The sniping posts he couldn't reach. The assault of lead lightened. Then Genocide drew an RPG from...somewhere. He collected himself and fired at the station's entrance. The explosion shook the station. From inside, the lights began to flicker. Communications were down on all fronts. Had he modified the rocket with some type of EMP? Not good. Amisdst the confusion Genocide entered using smoke bombs to mask his presence. Moving like a shadow, he killed everyone in the lobby silently with his knife. He made his way to the holding cells. Still they chanted. Still they praised. Still they raved for the arrival of genocide. Genocide shot the lock opening the cell. Jim Jimenez walked out and bowed before his master. Genocide smiled. He couldn't have imagined how proficient he had gotten with possession. Well, not quite possession. He had known of the Shinigami's ability to share their thoughts and emotions with humans. Shinigami like his mentor were ancient. They had so many years of memories, such strong a hatred for life that they overwhelmed the personality of the victim. The victim sees themselves as one of them. Shinigami can't force the will of the victim, so they find those who are already similar to them in some way. Genocide found the collective universal distrust of police to be a prime sentiment to capitalize on. He armed the inmates, infecting them with samples of his own dark essence.One particular inmate caught Genocide's eye. He knew the man's work. An arsonist. The one whom he recalls was responsible for blowing up his first car way back in high school. Rather than a standard firearm, Genocide gave the man a random assortment of grenades containing a special surprise. Genocide showed them visions of anarchy, of sending a message to a society that used and disregarded them. While this was also true of how he felt, years of living in darkness had changed him. He needed no purpose. No end goal. No justification. He just wanted to watch the world burn.
Genocide's small army broke off to engage several different wings of the station. Genocide went to the security room. He found Wayne, his informant, playing some FPS on one of the monitors. Wayne took of his headphones and asked," You kill everyone yet?" Genocide responded," No. You should get going before that happens. Your life becomes fair game if I run out of pigs to cook." Wayne clapped his hands, "Aight, GC my man, say less." He packed his things and left. Genocide drew a twin pair of handguns and laid waste to the station. He followed a group that took cover in the men's restroom. Kicking open multiple stalls he was surprised to find...nothing. Where had they gone? He turned around and saw his mentor, Masataka, smiling at him. It looked like him. Long, dark hair, black clothing, and soulless, empty eyes. But it wasn't. It was Genocide's own reflection in the mirror. Genocide smiled. He didn't notice the changes at first. They must have happened gradually. Subconsciously. From the final stall, an officer sprung into action, rushing Genocide, hitting him point blank with a shockgun round. Genocide felt the tingling sensation electrifying his body and grew numb. In spite of the pain, he took a single step. Then, another. He came within striking range of the officer and snatched the shockgun. Two more officers erupted from another stall, battering him with baton strikes. Genocide felt nothing. He clutched the shockgun in his hand like a bat and went to work pulverizing his attackers. An officer kicked in the bathroom door, a woman holding a pistol. She fired multiple times to no effect. Genocide stood covered in blood. He even let her reload. Twice. He wanted to see her despair. Her hopelessness. He walked towards her, shrugging off bullets as they pierced his body. His wounds healed nigh instantly due to the dark essence he had been imbued with. He held her face with both hands, lifting her body off the ground. As she screamed, he used her head to shatter the restroom mirror, running down the full length of it while smashing her into it at several points. He dropped the remains of what he held, washed his hands with soap, dried them, then exited the restroom.
The inmates that rallied for the cause of genocide attacked the station. Fortunately, they were nowhere near Genocide in terms of power and only carried one type of firearm each. They shared his healing ability but could be killed quite easily. Gracia encountered a sniper on the end or a west wing hallway. Other officers waited behind corners unable to get close. Gracia noticed the faulty lighting. In this hallway, the lights flickered in intervals of 3 seconds. Finding a pattern and timing her movements, she rushed the sniper at the exact moment the lights went out. Running the length of the hall, Gracia zigzagged, dodging the sniper inmate's bullets. She jumped on a wall, ran 3 feet on it, then kicked off it, pouncing on the assailant. She fired five shots into him, making sure to hit the brain and the heart. Two severe injuries that were impossible for Shinigami essence to heal simultaneously. Elsewhere, Evans took on another escaped inmate. A vehicular arsonist named Carson. Carson had a bag filled with an assortment of different grenades and was happily giving them out like candy on Halloween. "A flash bang here, a bit of tear gas there. Oh. Wait! Was that an ice grenade? Did the explosion freeze your leg to the floor? Whoops. Maybe a fire grenade will melt that for you. Hold on let me get one fore you," Carson rambled gleefully. Evans looked at the carnage before him. Officers burning. Officers partially frozen in blocks of ice. He took a breath and aimed his wristgun. He steadied his right forearm. Carson readied to throw a random grenade. Evans shot it the moment it left Carson's hand. The grenade exploded directly in front of Carson. Both Evans and Carson looked at each other in shock. Confetti. A party grenade? Carson quickly fumbled for another but was tackled and restrained by several officers. Meanwhile in the South wing, Lary had some colleagues set a trap for another shotgun toting inmate. He had them bait the inmate and flee. Giving chase he turned a corner and ran straight into Lary's fist. The inmate recovered and motioned to shoot Lary. "Let's tango. " Lary gave the code word. Nearby officers activated a device. A signal jammer of sorts. The inmate shoved the barrel of his gun into Lary's gut and pulled the trigger. Nothing. The special signal jammer in question was designed for firearms. It was a last resort as it left officers just as defenseless. Lary was having fun. He boxed the inmate in hand to hand combat. Despite the inmate's enhanced strength, Lary's technique pulled through. Lary ducked under one of the inmate's wide punches and did some type of rising uppercut where he jumped off the ground while spinning. One of the other officers whispered" The rising dragon." Lary smiled giving a thumbs up" Yeah, it was a rising dragon uppercut. Saw it in one O my kid's vidya games. Thought I'd try it out while I'm jacked on adrenaline".
Jim Jimenez looked long and hard at himself in the mirror. He was in the women's restroom. Some brainless woman had broken the men's restroom mirror with her face. For the first time in a long while Jim could think clearly. He was becoming sane. At the least he was no longer a raving lunatic. The life essence of the dark gods had healed the wounds to both his body and his mind. He saw his face, his scraggly dirty beard. He found a razor and shaved. He trimmed his beard somewhat. He liked it. He washed his hair. It fell down his face like silk, no longer greasy. His bloodshot eyes once burning with crazed intensity had cooled. He blinked. Just for a second, he saw the man known as Genocide. The man that attacked him. The one that killed him and gave him new life. The drug dealers. The police. They were all the same in his eyes now. They were all to blame for the world being what it is. Jim wanted to hate them. He wanted to take revenge, but he felt nothing. It didn't matter. He knew he was wronged, could logically justify acting against them, but he just didn't care anymore. About anything. He was finally free. Sensing his presence was no longer needed here, Jim vanished into the night. He needed to find someone who had had the answers he needed. Himself. Who had he been? Who was he now? Who could he become? Where was he going? So many questions to ponder indefinitely. So much time left in the rest of his life.
Genocide ran down the station's halls raining hailstorms of bullets upon its occupants. He had a handgun in each hand as well as a wristgun on each wrist. This effectively gave him 4 separate firearms that he could use simultaneously. Lary regrouped with Gracia, Evans, and a handful of others. They radioed all surviving officers near Genocide to flee to the roof. This plan had been set in motion days before the assault and had been kept hidden from most of the force. The plan involved scheduling flights for several helicopters to arrive at some point after Genocide arrived. There would be no way for him to prepare for them and pre-scheduling their arrival ensured they arrived regardless of if they were called or not. Lary and the others set about preparing the second jamming device. Genocide stood among a hallway of bodies. He saw one man clinging to life trying to crawl away. He decided on trying that other thing he saw his master do. He grabbed the dying man and pinned him to the wall. Slowly he drove a knife into his chest. As the man's life slipped away, something else entered his body. Genocide channeled a small amount of his essence into the vessel. He had steadily done this with other casualties around the station whose bodies were somewhat salvageable. He dropped the body he was holding and looked upon the others. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his eyed were black, both sclera and iris. The scene before him changed. Genocide had a vision. He saw a dead gray wasteland littered with bodies. These people however weren't cops and wore traditional Japanese attire. In his hand wasn't a gun or knife but a short sickle akin to a farming tool. He heard a dark voice call out to him. Slowly, the corpses around him began to rise, now mere puppets bound eternally to their master's whim. The bodies sold to the reaper who had claimed their lives. Genocide's vision ended. His eyes had returned normal. Around him, dead cops began to rise. His dark essence had entered their bodies and reanimated them. He sent his dead army to attack the officers fleeing to the roof of the station. These zombies swarmed the stairwell giving chase to the few survivors. There were five of them. They had two flights of stairs to climb and a horde of their former colleagues close behind them. One officer tripped and was set upon by the horde. The zombies didn't bite them but held them firmly in place. The other four officers stared down wondering what to do. They could hear Genocide chuckling. They could hear humming. They could feel the temperature rising. Their colleague and the two zombies holding him were hit by an enormous green fireball. Genocide had fired a Magnum Opus and had charged the bullet to level 3. The Magnum Opus was simply a magnum that shot fireballs, with bullets that could be charged by holding down the trigger. It had three levels of charges. Level 1 was a small reddish ball of plasma. Level 2 was slightly larger and yellow. Level 3 was the maximum charge and resulted in a large slow moving green blast of energy. The officer was ignited and Genocide watched gleefully as the force of the blast sent him flying through a wall. The four officers continued up firing occasionally to slow down the zombies. Soon they made it to a door leading to the roof. Before one officer could reach it, he was sniped by Genocide, a bullet to the head killing him instantly. The remaining three made it out. They regrouped with the others already there, 12 in total, including Lary, Evans, and Gracia. This would be their final stand. They just had to hold out until Genocide made it up there. They just had to keep Genocide occupied until the helicopters arrived. Genocide slowly ascended the stairs behind his horde. On the roof, the remaining survivors faced off against waves of the undead. Evans recognized the attackers. These zombies were being controlled by nanomachines. He heard the stories of several weapons encountered by soldiers on the battlefield. These creatures were called Metaldeads as they were reanimated via machines. They had been officially banned by most of the worlds' governments for being unethical. However, this did not stop the technology from being spread still between shady organizations, terrorists, etc. Evans wondered how Genocide got this form of nanotechnology. Evans long speculated that the dark essence used by most of the killers they encountered was a a form of nanotech however it was different from anything else he had seen or heard about. The dark essence seemed to be an amalgamation of other types of nanotech. Evans had to save his inquiries for later. He reloaded his wristgun and took aim at the approaching group of Metaldeads. Gracia steadied her handgun and shot two Metaldeads in the head. From the single door countless arms seemed to spill forth from the darkness. The other officers took turns firing in intervals. this allowed them to create a steady stream of fire where no more that three guns needed to be reloaded at once. The horde seemed to thin out over time as if they were making progress. In actuality, the Metaldeads were just making room for Genocide to enter. Genocide exploded in a sprint from the door. Everyone fired upon the killer. Genocide had now chosen a wrist mounted mini flamethrower to use as his weapon. He stormed past the oncoming bullets taking some damage, but refused to slow down. He unleashed a stream of fire that caught five of the officers in one fell swoop. Gracia fired five rounds into Genocide's face. He stumbled back. Lary took the chance to fire several mine gun bullets at Genocide's feet. The mines quickly detected his movement and exploded. In seconds, Genocide was on his back.
Staring at the night sky Genocide saw the moon. He reached for it. He called for the darkness to give him more power. His wounds began healing. In the sky he could hear the whirl of propellers. There were six helicopters in total. The first two had evacuated the survivors while the others stayed to engage Genocide. Genocide got up and unstrapped the sniper rifle from his back. He stood before the searchlights as a black silhouette, cornered but unwilling to back down. Lary stared down at him smiling. "Okay!" He shouted, "Let's Tango!" Upon this declaration the second jamming device was activated. Now, isolated on the roof, Genocide's guns couldn't be fired and the helicopters were out of range of the device. Now Genocide stood like a sitting duck. A helicopter fired a rocket. Genocide side stepped and grabbed it. He turned his body redirecting the rocket to hit another helicopter. As it exploded Genocide drew his knife and threw it at another helicopter. Behind the knife was such force that it shattered the helicopter window's glass, embedding itself in the pilot. This helicopter too went down where it exploded. "Holy clucknuggets!Did you see that!?" Lary said dumbfounded. Evans looked out the helicopter door he was in jaw open in shock. "There's no way." He collected himself quickly and radioed the remaining two helicopters to keep moving and to use their machineguns as much as possible. The helicopters reigned down upon Genocide tearing apart his body. Shreds of leather and darkened blood sprayed across the pavement of the roof. Gracia watched as Genocide's body was destroyed repeatedly as it tried to heal. Surely he had to stop at some point. After 10 minutes the helicopters had exhausted their cache of ammunition and soldiers opted to fire their own rifles and occasionally throw grenades. After about six minutes, they too had run out of bullets. Genocide stood unfazed. He had long since healed himself and now appeared intangible with gunfire seeming to pass through his body. His coat once ripped , now appeared whole though on closer inspection seemed to writhe. Gracia looked in horror as she remembered the tales her adopted father had told her. Tales he had in turn heard from his predecessors. Every so often officers had reported encounters with ghost like beings cloaked in a cloud of living dark mist. The beings were rumored to be responsible for the deaths of multiple people ranging from scientists, veterans, mafia, politicians, etc. They were seen near such crime scenes and even more shockingly appeared around several sites where suicides were committed. These beings were reportedly impervious to bullets and filled anyone who got near with an impending sense of dread. If Genocide was connected to them or somehow turning into one , there was little chance they would be able to defeat him. Gracia's fears were confirmed when she saw that Genocide's leather coat had been destroyed and he had replaced it with the dark mist coalescing from his own spilled blood. The dark mist, swirling, grew larger and several tendrils sprouted out from it. Gracia could briefly make out a figure standing next to Genocide. A hooded figure cloaked in the same black substance. The figure stared up at her with soulless, blackened eyes which seemed to beckon her to jump from the aircraft she was standing in. Compelling her to give in to the death that plagued the earth. Genocide kneeled to his master. The Shinigami, Masataka stared down at his disciple. "You have done a great service to us. Even now the sealed god stirs in its slumber. Its...Awakening will soon be upon us. It calls out for war. It begs for famine. It longs to continue its conquest. We are the death it so desires. The death that is necessary for this civilization to grow. Use the power that I have bestowed upon you. Finish the mission as you see fit." The Shinigami vanished and Genocide stood.Genocide stared at his hands. He remembered the first killing spree. He was on a bus. It stopped. A woman got on the bus and walked to the back smiling as she passed him. Something about her eyes unnerved him. They were so bright but something dark reflected inside them. He ignored the thought and put in his headphones. In minutes he had dozed off. He jumped awake. He looked around and froze in panic. All around him, everyone had been hacked to pieces. He saw the driver, actively being stabbed by a masked assailant. The mask, painted white with black eyeholes, stared back at him. It raised a finger over where its lips would be. Even under the expressionless visage, he could feel that same smile. He ran home that morning. He went to his room to find it destroyed. His posters, his computer, his tv, everything, had been ruined. He turned around and saw a man at the end of the hallway holding a sledge hammer. "The hell you been, boy?", his stepdad sneered. The man dropped his hammer and walked closer, veins pulsing with rage. He tried to explain how his car had caught fire forcing him to walk 4 miles to the nearest bus stop, but the man's fist was faster than his words. "Boy!Answer me when I talk to you!!" the man says as he backhands the taste out of the would be Genocide's mouth. He took that beating for several minutes before being left to stare at his ransacked room. He hated how his stepdad went out of his way to destroy the things he loved. Soon, another set of footsteps could be heard. It was his mother standing behind his locked door. She didn't knock, or say anything. She just stood there, doing nothing as always. He never knew if she came to talk to him or apologize. All he knew was that she could never bring herself to speak to or even acknowledge him. Maybe out of guilt or perhaps shame. A year or two later after he had had enough he ran away from home. Living out on the streets alone, without friends, or family, he would embark on countless killing sprees. These killings weren't of his own volition however. He was coerced by some corrupt officers from The Unit. They made him kill on their behalf. Sometimes they were protesters, sometimes they were drug dealers, other times, petty criminals they couldn't be bothered to process. It was routine for him to be used to kill entire houses of drug riddled addicts. During one such venture he entered a drug den, killing the dealer as instructed. He took out several junkies before turning to leave. A woman who survived her injuries clung to his heel begging him to stop. Looking down he aimed the handgun he was carrying at her head of long disheveled brown hair and fired. Feeling nothing, he kicked her body aside like trash when it hit him. Her face. This woman had been his mother. What was she doing in a place like this? He felt a shock of emotion. He wondered if she had always been like this, or had she changed after he left. He never made amends, but decided to stop killing from then on. The unit did not like that. Once it became apparent that he was no longer of use to them they started a manhunt to apprehend him with lethal force. They found him. They killed him. But he survived.
He remembered the girl on the bus. He remembered her eyes. Those of a sadistic killer. Still there was something else inside them. Something faint but deeper. So. Much. Sadness. Just like him. He felt the hatred begin to spread. His purpose, he decided, was to make all humans rot in the hell they created for him.
These people, he thought to himself, these living diseases, all needed to die. Their struggles, their problems, they spread like cancer to others. The only cure for humanity's sin, its collective wrongdoings, was genocide.
Around him, dark tendrils continued to form and expand, spinning in a vortex. Genocide pulled out two pistols. He squeezed the triggers to no effect. "As I see fit, huh? Hehe." He squeezed both guns in his hands, breaking them into pieces. He concentrated. In his hands, two more guns materialized now completely black due to being forged from the dark essence. Forged by his will. Immune to the jamming device that shut down conventional firearms. He raised his arms at each remaining helicopter and opened fire. Countless tendrils whipped out and slashed at his targets joining the dark essence bullets. It was chaos. Dark tendrils and bullets tore through every direction as Genocide spun and swirled around in 360 degrees firing randomly with purpose. A tendril pierced Gracia's right arm, another, her abdomen. She was however, fortunate, as the other passengers of her helicopter were dismembered. She barely had time to jump from the vehicle before it crashed. She fell 2 yards onto solid concrete. She felt immense pain as her right shoulder shattered on impact. She looked up to see Genocide's blade like appendages ripping through the other escape helicopters. She rolled onto her back and tried to steady herself. Within seconds her body began to repair itself. The nanocells inside her had saved her life but were now depleted. She would need another supplement lest she receive another fatal injury. The standard nanocells she and the others had were much less potent than those of the killers they faced. In truth, they had only minimal strength boosts being able to lift 5-8 more pounds than before and healing being limited to one or two fatal injuries so long as death didn't occur instantly. Gracia blacked out. She awoke the next morning in a hospital. There the doctors refilled her nanocells. She learned that the station had been left in ruins. Genocide had detonated some type of minature nuke following his rampage. He always blew up the stations as if to send a message. Gracia looked out the window thinking about why she became a cop. Twice her family had been murdered by them. Her biological family had been killed in an on record drug raid committed by a group of corrupt officers called The Unit. She had been adopted by another officer that arrived at the scene who found her as a child hiding in a closed. Sadly, he too was killed for trying to expose the activities of The Unit. Gracia joined the force to avenge both losses and bring justice to the killers that disguised themselves as normal people. Law enforcement was neither good, nor bad. It depended upon the people that made it up. In the dying corrupt world Gracia lived in, she vowed to be a beacon of light. Evans laid in a bed adjacent to Lary. "That damn Genocide's somethin else in' he?Like the stories you told us were understatements. That man could legit not die at this point in the story. Like he has friggin plot armor or somthin.'' Evans cut him off" I get it. We all got our asses handed to us. But did you see that ..thing that appeared next to him. Right before he created that black vortex that wiped us out. That must have something to do with his power. Maybe there's a still a way to stop him."Lary chimed in," That fella looked like he was on the way to a black metal concert wit all the black facepaint he was wearin' Creeped me out to be honest." As the survivors mulled over their predicament, the cycle of evil continued to spread elsewhere.
Budley flips through the pages of a magazine. He checks his watch. He looks around the gas station and doesn't see any customers. Seizing the opportunity, he puts in his headphones and begins playing an imaginary guitar as he jams to a progressive deathcore album. Oblivious to the screams coming from outside, the store clerk moves on to thumping two candy bars on the counter to simulate drums. Budley sees that his shift has ended and begins locking up the store. He sweeps the aisles and jumps as a shadow appears behind him. He turns and sees a well groomed bearded man dressed in a black hoodie, black shirt, and black and gray camo pants. The man holds out his hand and smiles. Budley rings up the pack of nicotine substitute gum. "Tryin to kick the habit huh?" Budley asks. The man replies, "Somethin like that. Gotta get my priorities back in check. Focus on the things that really matter. That damn KonCreep's a hell of a band aren't they?" He nods to the playlist on Budley's phone. "Yeah, they're killer. just got into them a month back." Budley answers. "You know, I'm something of a musician myself. Maybe you'll hear of me on the news someday." Jim Jimenez says as he sees himself out. He walks to the back of the building and passes an ominous form of graffiti. A woman lays unmoving and above her, written on concrete in red is a message that simply says "Genocide Reigns".

Kaya ba mag move on ng fully kung first love mo? Di ko alam saan magsstart sa kwento ko. Minsan hate ko siya pero minsan miss ko rin siya. Miss ko lang yung time na nakalimutan ko siya pero life really has its ways.
We were childhood friends. Nagkakilala kami ni “Justin” nung preschool palang. Tapos nagkacrush ako sa kanya noong elementary. Of course yung sa puppy love, kilig kilig. Noong nag highschool kami, magka-iba ma kami ng school. We lost touch for a while pero since we had a similar circle of childhood friends we started talking again nung mga 3rd year na kami. Yun we clicked. Exact same footing nung bata pa kami. We talked everyday before going to school and falling asleep. Nagkakamustahan tungkol sa friends at family pati na rin sa mga school work. Minsan din we help each other to answer our homework. Feel ko I really fell for him at 15. He seemed so perfect to me. He understood me and my silences. Parang I didn’t have to explain my soul to him because he just got it. We never went out together na kami lang pag weekends kasi admittedly I felt like hindi ko kaya so lagi akong tumatanggi. As in parang nagrarambol yung mga butterflies sa tiyan ko when im around him. Somehow, parang yung common sense ko nawawala. Lahat pinagusapan namin hanggang sa future and mga trips for summer kahit wala naman kami label. Di ko rin alam if he felt the same way kasi never naman din kami nagshare ng feelings namin na ganon sa isat isa. Oo, bobita talaga. We went on like this until 4th year na kami. Nung prom ko, I brought one of my best friends as my dates kasi nag promise kami nung bata pa kami na kami mag kasama sa prom. I didn’t think of it much kasi Justin naman din told me he and his friends were planning to fly out for a grad trip around that time so I thought wala ding point if I asked him to go with me to prom. The night of prom sinabi ng friend niya na he kind of thought I’d ask him to prom. Shucks di ko alam pano magreact so kinalimutan ko nalang. Ayun so parang medyo nag on-off na contact namin. When we reached the last half of 12th grade, we went back to where we left off pero deep inside alam ko na I shouldn’t make anything of this anymore. His friends would tease me about him when I’d pass them in the hallway. Tapos when I bumped into his bestfriend on a night out, tinanong niya kung ano kami ni Justin. Wala akong masagot so tumawa nalang ako at sinabi friends lang. One time nagkasama lahat kami ng mga friends namin from elementary for inuman, and that night he stuck close to me. Always walking right behind me kahit na nagpapaiwan ako from the group kasi ayaw kong makasama siya na kami lang. The whole time he was asking me about the guys I’ve talked to/dated in the past years. Our group was bar hopping and just so happens na madami akong friends na lumabas that night. So naghhi hello ako and he’d just stand right behind me. He asked me how I knew most of the boys. Tapos sabi oh friend of friends lang ganon. Actually that night talaga sobrang nagccringe ako sa sarili ko kasi in one of the bars we went to he asked me to cover his part eh I didn’t want to interact with him so much so I nodded my head and paid nalang. We went to another bar naman Tapos he sat beside me. I felt so uncomfortable kasi parang di na gagana utak ko kung magkatabi kami at padami na yung na iinom. Yun umuwi ako with a friend and the night ended at that. I told myself na dapat i-let go ko na yun kasi wala naman din mangyayari at nagiging bobo lang ako. So i started replying slower and slower till di na kami nag kausap ulit. Tapos nung mga last few weeks ng grade 12 nilapitan ako ng kabarkada niya tinanong niya yung nag-uusap ba daw kami ni Justin, bat daw di kami magtry, cute naman daw kami together, bigay niya daw number ni Justin sakin para magkausap kami ulit. Tumawa nalang ako at sinabi na wala friends lang naman din kami. Yun so it’s water under the bridge na. I went to college abroad and I left right after I graduated hs. While I was settling down in a new place, tinawagan ako ng bestfriend ko. Pagkatingin ko ng mukha sa screen si Justin pala. Tinanong niya kumusta ko at dahil emotional ako at mag-isa sa ibang bansa sabi ko wag na tayo mag usap kasi alam ko may kausap or girlfriend ka na ganon. Sabi niya no wala pero yun din a week later nagpost siya na sila na ng kinakausap niya. Ok lang naman strong naman po ako. So kinalimutan ko na siya tapos masaya na ako. A few times lang rin during college nag dm siya sakin asking if may bf ako ganon pero yun lang. Fast forward graduate na kami lahat ng college so lahat kami sa batch namin nag uwian sa hometown to catch up. Di kami nag pansinan buong night. Nilapitan niya nalang ako nung may mga kumakausap sakin na mga lalaki. Nainis ako dahil di ako makalandi well since lagi siya nangingistorbo tapos paulit ulit niya ako kinakamusta na parang gago. Alam ko wala naman siyang feelings sakin, lintik lang talaga minsan. May common friend kami na girl tapos sila yung magkasama at nagsasayawan the whole night except nung times na nagpapapansin siya. Yun lang after nalaman ko may nangyari pala between them dati. Gusto kong sabihin na wala akong pake at all pero sa totoo may konting pag-irap ng mata kasi close kami dati ng ate gorl mo. Yun pa sinabihan niya ako that night na gago si guy and all that bago kami pumunta sa inuman. Recently, pumunta sa current city ko yung close friend niya na guy na ka close ko rin. We met up a few times as friends. Yun lang after ng first meeting namin na stinory ng guy friend, lagi na siya nanonood and like sa mga story ko. Ginagago niya ba ako? Or gusto niya lang lagi akong maiinis sa kanya?
TLDR: bobo ako at minsan miss ko pa rin siya

Tldr; The dualistic model of consciousness better explains consciousness because materialism cannot account for consciousness in its entirety.
I’m a materialist and dualists always bring up things about consciousness that we do not know as proof of dualism. But this isn’t proof for dualism, this is proof that we do not scientifically understand everything about consciousness and the brain right now but we definitely could in the future, in fact it can easily be argued that since we seem to be on track to understand such things scientifically in its entirety then we should believe that consciousness is produced by matter and energy. But what if I’m missing the point?
There are materially unexplained phenomena such as color itself as explained by the Mary’s room thought experiment where a woman named Mary is in a room that is devoid of the color red but she learns everything there is to learn about the color red through science textbooks, I mean all of humanity’s scientific knowledge she would then completely comprehend in this hypothetical. Would she gain new knowledge about red if she then left her room to go outside and saw for the first time in her life a red rose?
She gained knowledge of what the color red looked like even though she already knew everything there physically was to be known about the color red. Thus this is argued to be a phenomenon that materialism can’t account for thus materialism is an inaccurate model of consciousness and because materialism is an inaccurate model of consciousness it follows that there is an immaterial in some way an aspect to our consciousness. In other words the model of dualism works better at explaining the qualia of the color red than materialism.